The Children's Illustrated Guide to Kubernetes(deis.com)
deis.com
The Children's Illustrated Guide to Kubernetes
https://deis.com/blog/2016/kubernetes-illustrated-guide/
57 comments
I would pay good money to have complex topics like this presented in the illustrated child fable format. I can imagine learning a university level course on security/network/OSI model protocols (boring as F*) but presented in a human readable narrative with characters and story arcs. My brain would remember it so god damn well.
You'd like "The Manga Guide to Databases" :)
Read the reviews here https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-Takahashi/...
Then buy it direct here https://www.nostarch.com/mg_databases.htm
Read the reviews here https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-Takahashi/...
Then buy it direct here https://www.nostarch.com/mg_databases.htm
YEah ! I love that book. I wish companies paid artists to collaborate with their technical writers to deliver engaging content tutorials in graphic novel format.
I think in terms of memory stimulation --->
text + (color + emotion + narrative) > text
The Greeks could memorize incredibly long speeches because they set up such weird memorization queues with bizarre imagery/stories to trigger passages from one topic to the next. Narrative inside technical documentation could leverage this as well.
text + (color + emotion + narrative) > text
The Greeks could memorize incredibly long speeches because they set up such weird memorization queues with bizarre imagery/stories to trigger passages from one topic to the next. Narrative inside technical documentation could leverage this as well.
Never heard about that. Time to Google it:)
After reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud [1], I came to a similar realization, and wish he could provide the same depth and thoughtful illustration to many more subjects, especially technical or mathematical. Even if comics aren't your thing, I would _highly_ recommend this book. It's a fantastic lesson in communication and composition.
1: http://scottmccloud.com/2-print/1-uc/
1: http://scottmccloud.com/2-print/1-uc/
You might enjoy the SELinux Coloring Book then, https://github.com/mairin/selinux-coloring-book
True, those are great illustrations.
Can anyone point me in the direction to get started with creating these kind of illustrations ?
Can anyone point me in the direction to get started with creating these kind of illustrations ?
My professor taught locks and race conditions with a game of chopsticks in front of the class. It felt silly and childish at the start but I'll never forget it!
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby comes to mind...
Brett Victor's Aligator Eggs helped me to finally understand beta reduction in Lambda Calculus. http://worrydream.com/AlligatorEggs/
Something about the colors and pictures clicked in my brain in a way that Greek letters did not.
Something about the colors and pictures clicked in my brain in a way that Greek letters did not.
How about the Manga Guide to Linear Algebra (https://www.nostarch.com/linearalgebra)?
If that's too adult, there's always the story of Ping: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2VDKZ4X1F992Q/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti...
If that's too adult, there's always the story of Ping: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2VDKZ4X1F992Q/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti...
Thanks for the links! Good to see such books aren't lost in total obscurity as I had suspected. Seems to me that "educational fiction" tended to be text-books poorly-disguised as stories, so I intend to do book for Physical Chemistry that flips it around: a story that happens to talk about the chemistry extensively (although, like most side projects, due to lack of funding/incentive that project is "taking it's own sweet time" going anywhere).
Can someone do one of these on monads too? Heh...
You mean, something like Functors, Applicatives, and Monads in Pictures[1]?
[1]: http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_...
[1]: http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_...
Isn't a monad just an endofunctor on the category of monoids?
No, you're thinking of a dish served at Chipotle.
This is fantastic in terms of quality and in terms of being unique as a format for conveying complex technical info. Thanks!
Wonderful illustrations. However, I'm going to dissent on its benefits as a guide. For me, this makes a common mistake in "simplified" technical writing: it assumes you already possess the knowledge that the author does. An example:
And so on... many other knowledge assumptions are made. The primary deficiency is that it doesn't present the story in terms of a problem to be solved. It's a solution presented as if you already know the full context of the problem, which is its achilles heel.
I exaggerate a little here, but I'll recap the story with what essentially are the questions I have remaining if I don't make many knowledge assumptions after having read it a few times. I know I can apply my experience to make intelligent assumptions and fill in the gaps, but you did say this was a guide for children, and I don't expect them to have decades of experience. Here's my recap:
So some giraffe doesn't like its environment and decides to go floating on an ocean, eventually gets picked up by a ship captain, is thrown into a pod (apparently along with an imaginary other container I have to pretend doesn't exist), and has an unexplained fetish for cloning. Why would a giraffe want to clone itself? Then some tunnel opens up to the rest of the ship. Does this mean that the captain, who has a penchant for picking up random strangers in the ocean, has now given access to my stuff to everybody else riding on the ship? What if some of those other random strangers are malicious? This tunnel sounds like a bad idea. Why do I want to be discovered, or discover others? Then the giraffe gets a gift and stores it in a shared location. Why would other clones need access to a private gift? Does that mean the elephant, lion, and turtle hiding in the closet now have access to my gift too? I don't know or trust them. Then namespaces are introduced, ostensibly as a means to have privacy. But wait... I thought my container, or my pod was private. I used it to get away from the scary shared hosting, but it sounds like it's no different here. And what is a namespace? Is it related to the "Hello my name is ______" image that was used for labels? Maybe it labels groups of things together? I'm not sure how revision control system (rcs) fits into this. Maybe I can store multiple versions. At any rate, it shows that a namespace lets you keep secrets from each other. Oh, maybe this is a better place to store my gift than a volume. Volumes can be read by any pod (and I don't want that pesky lion and turtle reading my things) so I'll keep it secret in a namespace... somehow. I hope my gift isn't too large to store it there. I'm told that a namespace isolates me from the rest of the cluster, but this is the first time the word cluster is introduced other than the original, highly technical explanation which resulted in the "Huh?" response that triggered this children's story.
Again, nice illustrations and a good effort. But I'm left confused about what all this stuff is because I don't know the answers to some of the assumptions you've made. I still have no idea why a PHP app with only one page needs all this complexity. It's just one page, right?
> Kubernetes uses labels as "nametags" to identify things.
> And it can query based on these labels. Labels are open-
> ended: You can use them to indicate roles, stability, or
> other important attributes.
And so on... many other knowledge assumptions are made. The primary deficiency is that it doesn't present the story in terms of a problem to be solved. It's a solution presented as if you already know the full context of the problem, which is its achilles heel.
I exaggerate a little here, but I'll recap the story with what essentially are the questions I have remaining if I don't make many knowledge assumptions after having read it a few times. I know I can apply my experience to make intelligent assumptions and fill in the gaps, but you did say this was a guide for children, and I don't expect them to have decades of experience. Here's my recap:
So some giraffe doesn't like its environment and decides to go floating on an ocean, eventually gets picked up by a ship captain, is thrown into a pod (apparently along with an imaginary other container I have to pretend doesn't exist), and has an unexplained fetish for cloning. Why would a giraffe want to clone itself? Then some tunnel opens up to the rest of the ship. Does this mean that the captain, who has a penchant for picking up random strangers in the ocean, has now given access to my stuff to everybody else riding on the ship? What if some of those other random strangers are malicious? This tunnel sounds like a bad idea. Why do I want to be discovered, or discover others? Then the giraffe gets a gift and stores it in a shared location. Why would other clones need access to a private gift? Does that mean the elephant, lion, and turtle hiding in the closet now have access to my gift too? I don't know or trust them. Then namespaces are introduced, ostensibly as a means to have privacy. But wait... I thought my container, or my pod was private. I used it to get away from the scary shared hosting, but it sounds like it's no different here. And what is a namespace? Is it related to the "Hello my name is ______" image that was used for labels? Maybe it labels groups of things together? I'm not sure how revision control system (rcs) fits into this. Maybe I can store multiple versions. At any rate, it shows that a namespace lets you keep secrets from each other. Oh, maybe this is a better place to store my gift than a volume. Volumes can be read by any pod (and I don't want that pesky lion and turtle reading my things) so I'll keep it secret in a namespace... somehow. I hope my gift isn't too large to store it there. I'm told that a namespace isolates me from the rest of the cluster, but this is the first time the word cluster is introduced other than the original, highly technical explanation which resulted in the "Huh?" response that triggered this children's story.
Again, nice illustrations and a good effort. But I'm left confused about what all this stuff is because I don't know the answers to some of the assumptions you've made. I still have no idea why a PHP app with only one page needs all this complexity. It's just one page, right?
Thanks for this, I try to tell my fiance what I do at my job but she hasn't understood until now!
He meant to write "Dearest Father, whose knowledge is incomparable, what is Kubernetes?"
Next: The Children's Illustrated Guide to Docker Networking.
i have never read something so entertaining and enlightening!! Thank you for that.
what about Mesos?
Not bad.
Images were a bit oversized.
Images were a bit oversized.
I like the children's illustrated guide concept (for adults). You definitely took it to an extreme here in terms of the characters and storyline. Assuming you aren't really trying to start a children's book series, I think if you toned down the cuteness just a little bit, you might have something interesting in explaining complex concepts.
As this is putatively a children's illustrated guide, I will allow myself to say that I do not trust that owl at all. I do not like that owl which put the innocent and helpless giraffe down in the cargo hold of its exceptionally dodgy ship and kept it locked down there with all the other animals and brainwashed it into thinking that it is happy. I do not like that owl that smiles a benevolent smile and laughs a hearty laugh without twitching the beak on its expressionless face. The one which is incredibly obviously a pirate because of its hat. That one.
That said, the pictures are very nicely drawn, I would encourage the author to illustrate his writings in the future.
That said, the pictures are very nicely drawn, I would encourage the author to illustrate his writings in the future.
> dodgy
I really wish Americans said this word more frequently. It accurately describes so many things, it's a shame we don't.
I really wish Americans said this word more frequently. It accurately describes so many things, it's a shame we don't.
I agree, but I think you have to admit the usual alternative "sketchy" is pretty expressive as well. :)
Please use JPGs that are not bigger than 50kB. More than 20 3MB images was about to eat my daily 3G data cap
Is that title a Diamond Age reference?
Pffft, dial up days are over. Thank you for using large images, looks great on high-dpi.
It's cute but does anyone else feel this helps perpetuate the man child stigma of our industry?
I think a bunch of 22 year-olds making $150K straight out of college does a bit more damage in that department than an illustrated Kubernetes guide.
Kudos to the author for making the images 3840x2560. Not only are they fantastic illustrations, they are somewhat future proof, as they will scale nicely on 4K+ resolution displays.
Looks like illustration 12 got replaced with a repeat of 10 at the end, the file is there and matches the text: https://deis.com/images/blog-images/kubernetes-illustrated-g...
Thanks for catching this. Fixed!
Typo in Kubernetes here:
"And other applications can find your service through Kurbenetes service discovery"
Edit: also "ephmeral" on the Volumes drawing.
"And other applications can find your service through Kurbenetes service discovery"
Edit: also "ephmeral" on the Volumes drawing.
I guess this is where we're submitting typos.
"Persiste" should be "persist" on the "Containers" graphic (https://deis.com/images/blog-images/kubernetes-illustrated-g...).
"Persiste" should be "persist" on the "Containers" graphic (https://deis.com/images/blog-images/kubernetes-illustrated-g...).
Other typo: "who's knowledge is incomparable" should be "whose knowledge is incomparable."
Thanks for the guide; I enjoyed reading it.
Thanks for the guide; I enjoyed reading it.
I don't it's fixed, I find the last image to be the same as the 10th.
Kudos to Matt Butcher - The man always had a fantastic ability to distill information down to its most essential and consumable form.
I love this!
Technical writing at its best. I wouldn't say the fate of the giraffe is something to envy. Just look at the final post-namespace picture.
Nice but wouldn't have hurt to throw in a simple little story, like "The Mange guide to Electricity". I already had a good understanding of electricity/electronics when I read that but the narrative created this fun refresher instead of the usual dry books you read on the subject.
The story helps me ground topics. It's weird but very effective. I highly recommend it if you are playing with Arduino/RASPI and want to go to that next level. Actually, I can't think of one subject that wouldn't be fun to learn with a Manga guide (they already have lots of them, Calculus, Linear Algebra, Physics).
The story helps me ground topics. It's weird but very effective. I highly recommend it if you are playing with Arduino/RASPI and want to go to that next level. Actually, I can't think of one subject that wouldn't be fun to learn with a Manga guide (they already have lots of them, Calculus, Linear Algebra, Physics).
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I kept waiting for Captain Kube to kill Phippy.
Haha. Yeah, the real story would probably be better told as a horror story...
Captain Kube captures Phippy and locks him in a dark container on his ship and forces him to perform repetitive work around the clock without any breaks - To make matters worse, Captain Kube begins carrying out highly hazardous experiments on Phippy which involves cloning him, messing with the clones and then mercilessly slaughtering them one by one in a seemingly endless cycle of violence and suffering.
Captain Kube captures Phippy and locks him in a dark container on his ship and forces him to perform repetitive work around the clock without any breaks - To make matters worse, Captain Kube begins carrying out highly hazardous experiments on Phippy which involves cloning him, messing with the clones and then mercilessly slaughtering them one by one in a seemingly endless cycle of violence and suffering.
I'm imagining netflix's chaos monkey as king kong boarding the ship and wreaking havoc on the boat and its crew.
Hilarious! On a serious note though; Phippy should be an elephant, not a giraffe...
Phippy is a PHP app, not a Java app.
I assume that's a joke about bloat, but anyway: http://php.net/elephpant.php
I love this concept. Great work and it really helps make a complex topic understandable.