This isn't an accurate statement. I work on behalf of a federal government agency, and no one has write access in development, let alone production. Everything is required to run thru our ci/cd pipeline. Times are changing.
For the better? I’m not asking out of preference, I’m asking out of actual conclusion: is trading the operational overhead of running LDAP for a usually homegrown, usually wobbly automated scripting soufflé that turns Make into a distributed system objectively better? Has nobody stopped to ask, is DevOps and CI/CD the best framework we can achieve? Did nobody think to ask before they told your agency it was the ‘right’ methodology and the objectively best way to build industrial, business process software in the government sector? Did the changing times come from ideology and belief or identified process gaps?
I ask because I think there’s something better. I don’t know what it is yet, but I want to find out. I’m worried about wastage in DevOps methodologies, a system where nobody is incentivized to care about the right things, going on to spook the policymakers on doing software before we find out if the DevOps and Cloud worlds, both, are objectively the best way to do software for their purposes. I strongly, strongly feel like the craft is on the wrong path, and persuasive successes in industry are getting to the right ears before we know if the discipline to efficiently handle agile infrastructure with today’s tooling is even possible. I’m not convinced DevOps will organically find the right calculus to spur the kind of systems research that took us to not only where we are, but that which will take us where we need to go.
Speaking of, I’m lazily glancing at Agile here as well but I’m not prepared for a coherent argument there, beyond pointing out that we now have better tooling for managing specifications, particularly formal and mathematical ones, than the waterfall development experiences that prompted agile thinking. We need more systems research, tinkering, rethinking POSIX, all of it.
Imagine a Graph,
the x-axis is time or adoption of a set of technologies.
Right now the hump in the bell curve is CI/CD and devops. It's safe to be in a large group.
If something better comes along then it'll start happening and in 15 years I expect the whole of government to adopt it when you are bemoaning the pitfalls of any new approach.
I dont disagree with many of your points, but are you advocating "logging into a production system and editing the config file in nano"? Can't tell if you are...
dielectrikboog|5 years ago
I ask because I think there’s something better. I don’t know what it is yet, but I want to find out. I’m worried about wastage in DevOps methodologies, a system where nobody is incentivized to care about the right things, going on to spook the policymakers on doing software before we find out if the DevOps and Cloud worlds, both, are objectively the best way to do software for their purposes. I strongly, strongly feel like the craft is on the wrong path, and persuasive successes in industry are getting to the right ears before we know if the discipline to efficiently handle agile infrastructure with today’s tooling is even possible. I’m not convinced DevOps will organically find the right calculus to spur the kind of systems research that took us to not only where we are, but that which will take us where we need to go.
Speaking of, I’m lazily glancing at Agile here as well but I’m not prepared for a coherent argument there, beyond pointing out that we now have better tooling for managing specifications, particularly formal and mathematical ones, than the waterfall development experiences that prompted agile thinking. We need more systems research, tinkering, rethinking POSIX, all of it.
gonzo41|5 years ago
zodiac|5 years ago