[master] ab63b45 Think of this as a warning-shot...

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at varnish-cache.org
Mon Mar 18 12:05:34 CET 2013


commit ab63b453a9f594198ce34ef503a0a16df4de2551
Author: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at FreeBSD.org>
Date:   Mon Mar 18 11:05:14 2013 +0000

    Think of this as a warning-shot...

diff --git a/doc/sphinx/Makefile.am b/doc/sphinx/Makefile.am
index 3dc88c6..579b6c8 100644
--- a/doc/sphinx/Makefile.am
+++ b/doc/sphinx/Makefile.am
@@ -110,6 +110,7 @@ EXTRA_DIST = \
 	phk/thoughts.rst \
 	phk/three-zero.rst \
 	phk/vcl_expr.rst \
+	phk/wanton_destruction.rst \
 	reference/index.rst \
 	reference/params.rst \
 	reference/varnishadm.rst \
diff --git a/doc/sphinx/phk/index.rst b/doc/sphinx/phk/index.rst
index 2b5cb1f..58da708 100644
--- a/doc/sphinx/phk/index.rst
+++ b/doc/sphinx/phk/index.rst
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ You may or may not want to know what Poul-Henning thinks.
 .. toctree::
 	:maxdepth: 1
 
+	wanton_destruction.rst
 	spdy.rst
 	http20.rst
 	varnish_does_not_hash.rst
diff --git a/doc/sphinx/phk/wanton_destruction.rst b/doc/sphinx/phk/wanton_destruction.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4289cf1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/sphinx/phk/wanton_destruction.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+.. _phk_wanton:
+
+=======================================
+Wanton destruction for the greater good
+=======================================
+
+We live in an old house, and it's all wrong for us.
+
+When I bought this house, it was perfect, or at least perfect enough.
+
+But times have changed.
+
+I have no small kids anymore, and rather than just right for two
+kids to tumble in, the garden is now too small for all the flowers
+we want.
+
+And the rooms are not where we want them, there are too many stairs
+in all the wrong places, and the kitchen needs to be torn out and
+a new built.
+
+I'm sure that some other family will be able to fall in love with
+this house, the way we did, but there is no realistic way to
+rebuild it, to become the house we want now.
+
+For one thing, doing major surgery on a house while you live in it
+is double-minus-fun and it always slows the rebuild project down
+when you have to keep at least one toilet working and sanitary and 
+be able to cook and sleep on the building site.
+
+So we'll be building a new house on a plot of land on the other
+side of the road, one of the coming years, a house which is right
+for us, and then we will sell this old house, to a family with small
+children, who will love it, and rip out the old funky kitchen and
+make a new one before they move in.
+
+One would think that software would be nothing like an old house,
+but they are more alike than most people imagine.
+
+Using a major piece of software, is like moving into a house: You
+need to adapt your life and the house or the software to each other,
+since nothing is ever quite perfect, there will be limitations.
+
+And those limitations affect how you think:  If you live in a 
+2 bedroom apartment, you won't even be considering inviting 80
+guests to a party.
+
+A lot of Varnish-users have taken time to figure out how Varnish
+fits into their lives and made the compromises necessary to make
+it work, and once you've done that, you moved on to other problems,
+but the limitations of Varnish keeps affecting how you think about
+your website, even if you don't realize this.
+
+Well, I've got news for you:  You'll be moving into a new house in
+the next couple of years, it'll be called Varnish V4 and that means
+that you will have to decide who gets which room and where to store
+the towels and grandmothers old china, all over again.
+
+I'm sure you'll hate me for it, "Why do we have to move ?", "It 
+really wasn't that bad after all" and so on and so forth.
+But if I do my job right, that will soon turn into "Ohh, that's
+pretty neat, I always wanted one of those..." and "Hey... Watch me
+do THIS!" etc.
+
+I could have started with a fresh GIT repository, to make it clear
+that what is happening right now is the construction of an entirely
+new house, but software isn't built from physical objects, so I
+don't need to do that:  You can keep using Varnish, while I rebuild
+it, and thanks to the wonder of bits, you won't see a trace of
+dirt or dust while it happens.
+
+So don't be alarmed by the wanton destruction you will see in -trunk
+the coming weeks, it is not destroying the Varnish you are using
+for your website today, it is building the new one you will be using
+in the future.
+
+And it's going to be perfect for you, at least for some years...
+
+
+Poul-Henning, 2013-03-18



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