I think one of biggest problems the industry suffers from is HYPE.
And we have HYPE all over the place: cloud services, frameworks, programming languages, tools, application architectures, etc.
And to my eyes DevOps is another hyped thing. Not only that, many jobs require you to be "certified" in a cloud service provider (a la Cisco like in the 90's) or on some particular tools (Kubernetes?).
Then we re-discover that the OLD way was really good, that actually there was no need for something that
over-engineered, and we go back and start doing things the simple OLD way. After some time, the cycle re-starts.
What is DevOps anyways? I don't know, but today it seems that is a word associated to fancy cloud services
and tools to deploy applications, way way different from the savvy system administrator from the 90's & 2000's
that knew lots core concepts as: DNS, LDAP, SNMP, HTTP (Apache), SMTP, NFS, iptables, etc.
If I had to hire someone for today tasks I'd probably stick to the 90's knowledgeable system administrator.
I agree completely. I remember very distinctly when tech transitionned from following "trends" to becoming "hype" : when iphone and apple marketing made developping ios app a hipster thing. All of the sudden you had articles in fashion newspaper talking about "how a mobile app developer desk looks like" ( saw it from my own eyes, it was next to the "architect desk" and the "fashion designer desk").
It certainly helped with the social integration of software developers (which is definitely a good thing), but it also created this bizarre connotation that tech had to be cool.
It doesn't. Technology first and foremost has to work. Especially software.
I should add that it's now becoming even worse : tech now has to be politically correct and inclusive ( aka: boycotting a database technology because its author don't support some US legislation regarding transgender rights would be a totally ok decision)
Hype existed before iPhone. In the 90s and 2000s it was "here's what a hip web dev's desk looks like" and the transition to AJAX web apps. Before that, the switch to Java and XML and delivery via applets. Before that the switch from minicomputers to desktops and access to the internet in your home. Before that switch from slide rulers and doing the math in your head :) They all came with style section articles and a feature on the cover of Newsweek.
And we have HYPE all over the place: cloud services, frameworks, programming languages, tools, application architectures, etc.
And to my eyes DevOps is another hyped thing. Not only that, many jobs require you to be "certified" in a cloud service provider (a la Cisco like in the 90's) or on some particular tools (Kubernetes?).
Then we re-discover that the OLD way was really good, that actually there was no need for something that over-engineered, and we go back and start doing things the simple OLD way. After some time, the cycle re-starts.
What is DevOps anyways? I don't know, but today it seems that is a word associated to fancy cloud services and tools to deploy applications, way way different from the savvy system administrator from the 90's & 2000's that knew lots core concepts as: DNS, LDAP, SNMP, HTTP (Apache), SMTP, NFS, iptables, etc.
If I had to hire someone for today tasks I'd probably stick to the 90's knowledgeable system administrator.