The Steady Emergence of PaaS

Grazed from Dr. Dobbs. Author: Andrew Binstock.

When I was first learning to program, PCs were expensive and unreliable devices. Due to the cost of PCs at the time, I recognized that the best way to have the PC I wanted was to assemble it from scratch. Every few years, I went out in search of the latest, screaming CPU, a new motherboard, as much RAM as I could afford, bigger drives, and a more powerful graphics card. Then, a weekend that I looked forward to with relish would be spent creating my next wonder-box. Next came the long process of reloading the OS, and finally, the apps and tools. When all was said and done, I had a newer, faster machine. But I was exhausted, rather than exhilarated.

After several cycles of this over the years, I finally realized that building my own PC was an enormous time sink that paid few real dividends. By then, PCs had dropped in price and become much more reliable. Intelligence prevailed, and since that moment of clarity, I have purchased all subsequent systems — and saved a lot of time and aggravation in the process…

My journey matches that of many developers who have been looking at cloud solutions. Having hacker hearts, we naturally gravitate to the IaaS model, which rents out a barebones virtual machine adorned with only an OS, generally Linux. There, the painful process of building something useful begins: Let’s make it serve a Web app. So, add Apache; configure that. Add MySQL; configure that. Add the scripting language (let’s say Python); configure that. Add the logic; configure that. Then, wire these components together and test like there’s no tomorrow. This process, is known informally as "yak shaving."..

Read more from the source @ http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/the-steady-emergence-of-paas/240159174