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Big fan of nextest and this is my first time seeing this site. I'll be real I feel a bit ridiculous commenting this but you might want to consider rephrasing th

Big fan of nextest and this is my first time seeing this site. I'll be real I feel a bit ridiculous commenting this but you might want to consider rephrasing this: >Treat tests as cattle, not pets. Detect and terminate slow tests. Not sure saying, "hey, treat your tests as an animal you can kill at will" paints the right image.

sunshowers 2mo ago
That's fair! I'll find a way to rephrase it. edit: Updated to "Detect and handle slow tests". Thanks again!
trollbridge 2mo ago
This is from the Kubernetes saying of "treat servers like cattle, not pets". Of course, some people like me keep cattle as pets, but then again I also name my servers, even the virtual or containerised ones.
- sunshowers 2mo ago
  Yeah that was indeed the inspiration (though I'm pretty sure it predates Kubernetes!) but the juxtaposition with "terminate" is unfortunate.
  - wojciii 2mo ago
    I liked the way it was phrased. You can't make everybody happy. :)
- seanhunter 2mo ago
  It’s a horrible saying in that context also.
  - embedding-shape 2mo ago
    I mean, I like animals too, but in context it does make sense. The context was to treat them as "obtainable yet ultimately killable entities you keep as a group, not individuals", which cattle pretty much is. Unless you consider keeping cattle as draft animals, but I think that stopped being the main purpose a long time ago. It got the point across, at a time where most people basically acquired servers, kept them until they died, and he was trying to push a development workflow where you constantly close("kill")/bring up new servers.
    - entrope 2mo ago
      IMO, "make your servers fungible" is a better way to express the intent: slightly shorter, no metaphors, although "fungible" is a less common word. Maybe that's just me. (Edited to add: "make your tests fungible" has I think the wrong connotation; I think the original wording on the blog is about test executions -- and "make your test executions fungible" does seem like a good goal, similar to ACID guarantees for database transactions.)
      - embedding-shape 2mo ago
        Before that, I used to call them "ephemeral", and of course half the people asked what "ephemeral" means, probably "fungible" would be met with similar question, unless the crowd is cryptocurrency-adjacent, that term seems understood there.
- jen20 2mo ago
  That (unpleasant) saying predates Kubernetes by at least half a decade.
- nixosbestos 2mo ago
  Who here is old enough to know about PetSets, since we're talking this topic and k8s...
mhluongo 2mo ago
It resonated with me!
Zababa 2mo ago
Fungible/non fungible is a good alternative, and maybe the technically correct word. But I think in that case it doesn't apply and the change the author did is better.
27183 2mo ago
"Treat tests as annuals not perennials" "Treat tests as workers not management"
moi2388 2mo ago
Jesus Christ do we seriously need to limit our speech and get rid of perfectly good analogies for every special little snowflake?
- sunshowers 2mo ago
  Like all things in life, there is a balance :) I didn't remove the cattle vs pets analogy but I did replace "terminate" with "handle".

sunshowers 2mo ago

That's fair! I'll find a way to rephrase it. edit: Updated to "Detect and handle slow tests". Thanks again!

trollbridge 2mo ago

This is from the Kubernetes saying of "treat servers like cattle, not pets". Of course, some people like me keep cattle as pets, but then again I also name my servers, even the virtual or containerised ones.

sunshowers 2mo ago
Yeah that was indeed the inspiration (though I'm pretty sure it predates Kubernetes!) but the juxtaposition with "terminate" is unfortunate.
- wojciii 2mo ago
  I liked the way it was phrased. You can't make everybody happy. :)
seanhunter 2mo ago
It’s a horrible saying in that context also.
- embedding-shape 2mo ago
  I mean, I like animals too, but in context it does make sense. The context was to treat them as "obtainable yet ultimately killable entities you keep as a group, not individuals", which cattle pretty much is. Unless you consider keeping cattle as draft animals, but I think that stopped being the main purpose a long time ago. It got the point across, at a time where most people basically acquired servers, kept them until they died, and he was trying to push a development workflow where you constantly close("kill")/bring up new servers.
  - entrope 2mo ago
    IMO, "make your servers fungible" is a better way to express the intent: slightly shorter, no metaphors, although "fungible" is a less common word. Maybe that's just me. (Edited to add: "make your tests fungible" has I think the wrong connotation; I think the original wording on the blog is about test executions -- and "make your test executions fungible" does seem like a good goal, similar to ACID guarantees for database transactions.)
    - embedding-shape 2mo ago
      Before that, I used to call them "ephemeral", and of course half the people asked what "ephemeral" means, probably "fungible" would be met with similar question, unless the crowd is cryptocurrency-adjacent, that term seems understood there.
jen20 2mo ago
That (unpleasant) saying predates Kubernetes by at least half a decade.
nixosbestos 2mo ago
Who here is old enough to know about PetSets, since we're talking this topic and k8s...

mhluongo 2mo ago

It resonated with me!

Zababa 2mo ago

Fungible/non fungible is a good alternative, and maybe the technically correct word. But I think in that case it doesn't apply and the change the author did is better.

27183 2mo ago

"Treat tests as annuals not perennials" "Treat tests as workers not management"

moi2388 2mo ago

Jesus Christ do we seriously need to limit our speech and get rid of perfectly good analogies for every special little snowflake?

sunshowers 2mo ago
Like all things in life, there is a balance :) I didn't remove the cattle vs pets analogy but I did replace "terminate" with "handle".