Wes Payne
Co-host of LINUX Unplugged, the Jupiter Broadcasting show on Linux, open source, self-hosting and home lab tooling, with topics ranging from NixOS and Home Assi...
“With software tests, I like the phrase: write tests, not too many, mostly integration. Mostly the things that test the real functionality that you care the most about, rather than strictly internal stuff. And I think there's a similar principle for dashboards and anything in monitoring, because too much information means you don't really pay attention to any of it. Or, like, alert fatigue, that kind of thing.”
LINUX Unplugged · Hands-On Engineering Podcasts · November 2026
Context
The hosts had drifted into whether they are 'dashboard guys', and one wished he had dashboards for everything in his life. Wes pushed back with a rule of thumb for what belongs on one.
Transcript
I like some dashboards. Like little
one-off-purpose dashboards?
Well, I think there is. So like with software tests, I like the phrase, you know, write tests, not too many, mostly integration. Like mostly the things that test the real functionality that you care the most about rather than strictly internal stuff. Not that those are bad. And I think there's a similar principle for dashboards and anything in monitoring because like too much information means you don't really pay attention to any of it. Yeah. Or like alert fatigue, that kind of thing. Or
it's just for like visual toy glitterness. Yeah, so I think
there's a layer where you can sort of have performative dashboards or just like surface level dashboard, which look really nice, but don't actually, you don't ever act on or don't, they're not like super useful. It's
almost just to like show. Which is not
More from LINUX Unplugged
