{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"Blog - Container Solutions","link":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com","description":"Read the latest thinking, news and research from the team at Container Solutions in our Cloud Native Blog.","language":"en","pubDate":"Fri, 06 Mar 2026 09:47:17 GMT","item":[{"title":"Claude's Structured Outputs","link":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/claudes-structured-outputs","description":"
\n \"Claude's <\/a> \n<\/div> \n

 <\/p>","pubDate":"Fri, 06 Mar 2026 09:47:17 GMT","author":"jamie.dobson@container-solutions.com (Jamie Dobson)","guid":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/claudes-structured-outputs"},{"title":"Why I'm No Longer Talking to Architects About Microservices","link":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-architects-about-microservices","description":"

\n \"Why <\/a> \n<\/div> \n

It happened again last week. I was at an architecture review meeting when a fellow architect eagerly started another debate about *microservices*. Within minutes, eyes glazed over and we were knee-deep in an absurd discussion about something that should have been a means to an end, but had morphed into the end itself. At that moment, I realized: I\u2019m done. I\u2019ve finally sworn off talking to architects about microservices. Why? Because these conversations usually go nowhere productive.<\/p>","category":["Cloud native","Microservices","Architecture"],"pubDate":"Tue, 11 Mar 2025 15:15:08 GMT","author":"ian.miell@container-solutions.com (Ian Miell)","guid":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-architects-about-microservices"},{"title":"Exploring OSCAL Using Neo4J","link":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/exploring-oscal-using-neo4j","description":"

\n \"Exploring <\/a> \n<\/div> \n

This post is aimed at those interested in continuous compliance, an extension of cloud native principles to the area of software compliance, an under-developed field of software automation.<\/p>","category":"Continuous Compliance","pubDate":"Fri, 10 Jan 2025 12:18:18 GMT","author":"ian.miell@container-solutions.com (Ian Miell)","guid":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/exploring-oscal-using-neo4j"},{"title":"Paralysed by Perfection: the Case for Action in Times of Change","link":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/paralyzed-by-perfection-the-case-for-action-in-times-of-change","description":"

\n \"Paralysed <\/a> \n<\/div> \n

Imagine a business that knows its survival depends on change\u2014but can't decide how to act. This scenario plays out more often than you'd think, with fear of failure paralysing decision-making and ensuring stagnation. This scenario can be summarised as a paradox:<\/p>","category":["Cloud native","Patterns"],"pubDate":"Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:02:11 GMT","author":"ian.miell@container-solutions.com (Ian Miell)","guid":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/paralyzed-by-perfection-the-case-for-action-in-times-of-change"},{"title":"Does Crossplane Replace Terraform? Part I: the Theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/does-crossplane-replace-terraform","description":"

\n \"Does <\/a> \n<\/div> \n

What is Crossplane?<\/h2> \n

If you don't already know, Crossplane is billed as an:<\/span><\/p>","category":["Cloud native","Kubernetes","CI\/CD","GitOps","Cloud Native Operations"],"pubDate":"Wed, 05 Jun 2024 10:27:40 GMT","author":"ian.miell@container-solutions.com (Ian Miell)","guid":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/does-crossplane-replace-terraform"},{"title":"In Praise of Low Tech\u00a0DevEx","link":"https:\/\/blog.container-solutions.com\/in-praise-of-low-tech-devex","description":"

\n \"In <\/a> \n<\/div> \n

When I started my career as an engineer in the early noughties, I was very keen on developer experience (devex).<\/span><\/p> \n

\n

So when I joined a company whose chosen language was <\/span>TCL<\/a> <\/span>(no, really), I decided to ask the engineering mailing list what IDEs they used. Surely the senior engineers, with all their wisdom and experience, would tell which of the many IDEs available at the time made them the most productive? This was decades before \u2018developer experience\u2019 had a name, but nonetheless it was exactly what I was talking about, and what people fretted about.<\/p> \n

Minutes later, I received a terse one-word missive from the CTO:<\/p> \n 

From: CTO
Subject: IDEs

<\/strong>> Which IDEs do people recommend using here? Thanks,
> Ian

vim<\/strong><\/code><\/pre> \n 
Being young and full of precocious wisdom, I ignored this advice for a while. I installed <\/span>Eclipse<\/a> <\/span>(which took up more RAM than my machine had, and quickly crashed it), and settled on <\/span>Kate<\/a> <\/span>(do people still use Kate?). But eventually I twigged that I was no more productive than those around me that used <\/span>vim<\/strong><\/code>.<\/p> \n 
So, dear reader, I married <\/span>vim<\/strong><\/code>. That marriage is still going strong twenty years later, and our love is deeper than ever.<\/p> \n 
This pattern has been repeated multiple times with various tools:<\/p> \n