Ask Slashdot: What exactly are "microservices"?

Tablizer writes: Over the past few years I've asked many colleagues what "microservices" are, and get 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 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 sub-thread debating the term.