I blame Java much more than heroku. Corporate drone Java developers have a much greater tendency to only write code (too much code!) and not be interested in learning anything beyond the confines of their comfy auto-completing IDE. It seems to me Java developers will howl "not my job!" the loudest whenever anyone suggests that maybe they can mange their own environments.
In the enterprise Java world, the comfy auto-completing IDE is a smart strategic choice when "managing the environment" means weeks of frustration at installing, configuring and fitting together by trial and error an application server like IBM Websphere and the application.
Funny tools like Maven, Subversion and certain Eclipse plugins add extra puzzles and unpredictability for the true amateur, but the normal unforeseen complications are usually enough to forfeit any hope of good automation.
Sounds like what has been around since the mainframe days and batch computing. Or maybe one could liken it to Star Trek, with ops being the people keeping the warp core going even when faced with borgs and black holes?
