GNU sed 4.2.2 released; maintainer resigns [LWN.net]

GNU sed 4.2.2 released; maintainer resigns

Posted Dec 29, 2012 1:39 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)
In reply to: GNU sed 4.2.2 released; maintainer resigns by khim
Parent article: GNU sed 4.2.2 released; maintainer resigns

This is a good writeup.

Along similar lines, many of these same managers see DevOps as a way to eliminate those expensive *nix admins (I've heard many people use this as an excuse for using Windows, even in non-profit orgs with *nix people volunteering)

and many such managers are embracing the "cloud" because it again lets them eliminate expensive admins, and in addition the expensive facilities people

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One world

Posted Dec 29, 2012 11:51 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I cannot possibly see how replacing the expensive sysadmin with a very expensive developer is a good move. Keep in mind that your average coding monkey will not know a thing about DevOps.

I see value in having a homogeneous set of workers which can both work on development and administration; in fact that is how I prefer to work. Having two worlds where one side hurls undeployable code to the poor sysadmin side creates unnecessary barriers; while deploying your own code is good, and also makes sure that deployment is simple enough.

Same goes for cloud deployments. Commercial cloud services are really expensive compared with buying and maintaining your own servers, even when you factor sysadmin salaries. What they give is flexibility, and the ability to play around without waiting for decades to get hardware.

Sysadmin people, it's time to sharpen your development skills. And viceversa. We are one world once again.

One world

Posted Dec 29, 2012 17:33 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

> I cannot possibly see how replacing the expensive sysadmin with a very expensive developer is a good move. Keep in mind that your average coding monkey will not know a thing about DevOps.

Ahh, you just don't "get it", developers actually produce something, as a result, their expense can be justified.

But Sysadmins are just overhead, eliminating pure overhead is good, and DevOps promises to make things easier and faster by letting the developers do whatever they want. (this is not what DevOps is supposed to be, but this is what managers hear it to be)

> Having two worlds where one side hurls undeployable code to the poor sysadmin side creates unnecessary barriers

I agree with this, but I don't agree that every developer and sysadmin should be equally skilled in both specialities. They need to understand enough of the other's tasks to respect them, and to appriciate the expertise that they bring to the table.