Ask Slashdot: What Exactly Are 'Microservices'?

After debating the term in a recent Slashdot subthread, longtime reader Tablizer wants to pose the question to a larger audience: what exactly are 'microservices'? Over the past few years I've asked many colleagues what "microservices" are, and get a gazillion different answers. "Independent deploy-ability" has been an issue as old as the IBM hills. Don't make anything "too big" nor "too small"; be it functions, files, apps, name-spaces, tables, databases, etc. Overly large X's didn't need special terms, such as "monofunction". We'd just call it "poorly partitioned/sized/factored". (Picking the right size requires skill and experience, both in technology and the domain.) Dynamic languages are usually "independently deployable" at the file level, so what is a PHP "monolith", for example? Puzzles like this are abound when trying to use the Socratic method to tease out specific-ness. Socrates would quit and become a goat herder, as such discussions often turn sour and personal. Here's a recent Slashdot subthread debating the term.

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