Observe

I had the opportunity to use this excellent tool/service/platform over the last month.

I won’t go into details about features etc (maybe later?) but the part that impressed me was how the core concept of breaking down everything into “resources” and “streams” was reflected at all levels.

It’s one thing to represent logs and metrics and so forth this way. It’s another thing to have it show up in how billing is handled, or diagnosis in response to support questions.

It is an example of a deep, recursive metaphor. I am reminded of “everything being a buffer” in Emacs, or “everything being an object” in Pharo, etc.

This comes up in other domains too — a tradeoff between this sort of uniformity and simplicity of structure, and a more “surface-level simplicity” that hides complexity of structure.

The latter can’t be extended, can’t be accessed or customized, but tends to win out (unfortunately) — so it is rare and pleasing to encounter something that can.