Re: Nice article.
I'm guessing many of the haters in the comments are 50 somethings, or retired and just don't get all these "new fangled buzzwords" and think that "we did all this devops stuff on mainframes back in the 70s".
I'm sure we're mostly in those groups. I certainly am. Mainframe? Yes, I learned FORTRAN on a University mainframe back about 1970; haven't use one since.
Buzzwords? Let's be careful here. We've seen a lot of technology change and it's all had its own terminology (and I'm convinced more changes of terminology than were strictly necessary - OO didn't really need to start from scratch given that it essentially added to existing concepts). But basically it's just the names for actual stuff, stuff that we've grabbed with both hands when it offered something useful. Microprocessors from 8-bit upwards? Great. 8" floppies? 5 3/4"? 3 1/2"? QIC? CD? DVD? MFM? ATA? SATA? USB? RDBMS? Yup, all good stuff, all grist to the mill. All mastered and taken to heart. Even just listing a few makes me realize, yet again, how much has changed and how we've all changed with it.
Management buzzwords, methodologies and the search for the Silver Bullet, that's a different matter. We've seen a lot of those go past us as well. The real difference that age brings isn't being unable to handle the buzzwords, it's that we've seen the same things go past again and again, just with different labels on them and the same mixture of good and bad results. The reason management prefers young coders to the old and grizzled is that we're resistant to bullshitting which is what they do best, and often the only thing they do at all. What we've learned is that there's no Silver Bullet, the best approach is to look at what you need to do, choose the approach that seems to fit the job in hand best and ignore the labels.
You'll eventually look back and say the same thing. The only difference will be your list of technologies.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
