On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 9:33 AM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I’m curious to know how computing environment have changed in the past
> couple of decades, and what sorts of environments are currently most
> prevalent. —E


This is sort of like asking about languages -- what you use is partly need
driven, partly forced on you, and partly a matter of preference so you have
to be able to use all of them even if you have more control over your
computing environment than ever before.

Given a choice, I prefer to do throwaway stuff on my machine and anything
else on AWS or some other third party platform unless there is reason to do
otherwise those options are generally more flexible, convenient, and
reliable than alternatives. I find real hardware a hassle from a
procurement, maintenance, and upgrading/replacement perspective and our
local cloud cannot provide the functionality of services like AWS.

In practice, local policies, IO considerations, and cost structures also
require me to also use dedicated hardware and virtualized machines in our
local data center in addition to my preferred environments.

kyle