OS 101 module 2 lesson 4: minor comments

[danielskatz]

"Some examples of version control platforms:" is kind of simplistic, since these platforms are really more social coding platforms that support version control. Things like issues and forums aren't part of version control, but are key to the success of these systems.

While "GitLab: a Git-based platform that also offers DevOps and CI/CD functionalities." is correct, it's also software that can be used to create gitlab platforms, including gitlab.org

I'm also a little confused to see HPC as "High computational power" while Cloud is "Extremely high computational power". This is true for some workloads, but not for others, e.g., a highly parallel PDE solver will often run faster on a big HPC system than a cloud.

"E.g. it can cost significant amounts to read in data from different Cloud regions" seems slightly off, since I usually think about data costs for clouds as being to take the data out of the cloud, not to read data in from it.

The discussion about software repositories vs archives seems to leave out package management systems, which is what are used in practice for many of the things listed as reasons to use archives here, i.e., "static storage where stable and thoroughly tested software releases are kept"

[katblanchette]

@bressler95tops - Will you remove the word "extremely" from the sentence "extremely high computational power? We are also curious to know your thoughts Brian, before we bring this to the OS101 curriculum working group to discuss further. Thank you!

[bressler95tops]

@katblanchette @danielskatz I'll break down the different items here and apply my knowledge to what I think would be a good solution, but happy to discuss with the larger group.

1. 'Some examples of version control platforms:' could be more specific and change to 'Examples of git-based version control and software development collaboration platforms:'. This is located here.
2. That is true with regard to GitLab. You can self-host GitLab without using GitLab.com as this is just a service you can choose so you don't have configure it yourself. So with that, the mentioned sentence can become 'a Git-based platform that offers DevOps and CI/CD functionality, and the ability to self-host GitLab instances with collaboration capabilities. Also located here.
3. I generally agree with that the suggestion (located here) about cloud not necessarily being the fastest type of server storage, this could be change to just 'High performance computational power'.
4. That is true depending on the pay model for a particular cloud computing platform. I think to broadly address the diversity of services out there, it would be more appropriate to say 'E.g., usage on these platforms can incur a significant cost' since most of them phrase it as usage. Here is where that text is located.
5. Good point, this can change to 'Conversely, a software archive is static storage where stable and thoroughly tested software releases are kept. Users access these archives to obtain reliable versions of software, ensuring stability and reliability in their applications. Understanding the difference between these two is crucial for effective software development and distribution. Package managers facilitate the installation of software archives within an application, or an operating system.' This line is located here.

[katblanchette]

@danielskatz and @bressler95tops - Thank you for your feedback and patience as we work through this issue. The OS101 Team agrees with @bressler95tops suggestions and would like to move forward with incorporating them.