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The Lost Art of System Administration

matt-rickard.com

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Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#41

Post by SuperQue »

avgcorrection wrote: post #34
keyle wrote: post #8

I grew up with spectrums and ms-dos with a turbo and a reset button. I feel sad for my kids who will grow up with iPads and Windows 14 PCs with not the slightest clue on how things are running and the OS shielding them from crashing the thing or running viruses for fun. Same things for young lads that come out of university today with their degrees. They're well spoken and can recite algo theory like nothing but stil…

I grew up with Unix 1 and a soldering iron. I feel sad for my kids who will grow up with ms-dos and high-level languages and not have a clue how things really work . Whither civilization?

Kids these days and their electricity. They'll never learn to be a good barrel cooper.

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#42

Post by KaiserPro »

unboxingelf wrote: post #18
silverfox17 wrote: post #11

This seems a bit generalized. Yes, infrastructure as code/etc. are becoming more prevalent, but underneath there are still systems running. While a lot of jobs can abstract away these things, they are still there, and very real. If more people had an understanding of the underlying operating systems and file systems we could mitigate a lot of vulnerabilities, or find performance issues that may otherwise be obstructe…

Comparing kubernetes to a sysadmin manually provisioning a LAMP stack is like comparing a home kitchen to commercial factory. They can both make a pizza, but one can make an order of magnitude more - at same time. They’re solving two different problems.

not really. its a spectrum.

the only real difference is the sense of smugness when it works. In the old days deploying LAMP was a sense of achievement. save for patching, there wasn't much more work to do.

Kubernetes is basically the same level of effort, but the upkeep is a bit more.

Also the networking is batshit, and so is the aversion to swap.

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#43

Post by blahyawnblah »

glintik wrote: post #33
unboxingelf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing kubernetes to a sysadmin manually provisioning a LAMP stack is like comparing a home kitchen to commercial factory. They can both make a pizza, but one can make an order of magnitude more - at same time. They’re solving two different problems.

Wrong comparison, sorry. K8s is enterprise thing, while LAMP is good for SOHO. So cookies factory vs small bakery.

You do realize some of the internet's biggest sites run on the lamp stack, right?

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#44

Post by b112 »

glintik wrote: post #33
unboxingelf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing kubernetes to a sysadmin manually provisioning a LAMP stack is like comparing a home kitchen to commercial factory. They can both make a pizza, but one can make an order of magnitude more - at same time. They’re solving two different problems.

Wrong comparison, sorry. K8s is enterprise thing, while LAMP is good for SOHO. So cookies factory vs small bakery.

This is a poor analogy overall, but I think to would be better to think of it thusly...

K8 is where you don't own the kitchen, and you lease it when you wish to cook. You aren't aware of how to maintain the kitchen, or buy the ingredients you choose to cook with. In fact, you aren't even able to tell if a mango is ripe or not when shopping, because you don't shop and don't know how to.

That's what K8s are.

Meanwhile, SysAdmins know how to maintain, manage, run the kitchen... as well as cooking the meal. SysAdmin knowledge scope is greater than K8 knowledge scope for this reason.

What AWS, what docker, what K8s have done, is outsource specific realms of knowledge and skills, so people don't have to "deal with that". But if one is outsourcing knowledge and skills, one cannot claim that this makes the work more sophisticated.

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#45

Post by b112 »

Syonyk wrote: post #26
keyle wrote: post #8

I grew up with spectrums and ms-dos with a turbo and a reset button. I feel sad for my kids who will grow up with iPads and Windows 14 PCs with not the slightest clue on how things are running and the OS shielding them from crashing the thing or running viruses for fun. Same things for young lads that come out of university today with their degrees. They're well spoken and can recite algo theory like nothing but stil…

> Have we reached that level of the civilisation that goes extinct, for forgetting how its own inner machines work? Probably. Almost nobody under the age of 40 works in the "deep weeds" anymore (firmware, kernel, casually "Ring 0 and below" spaces). A decade ago, it was about 30. I'm the last wave, it seems, of people in these spaces, and that's quite terrifying. But I get it. The hardware is maddeningly complex, rap…

I often wonder the same. I grew up at a time, where I had to learn assembly on the C64, to get my machine to handle > 300 baud with uploads/downloads, on a BBS I wrote.

On the hardware side, it was very easy to learn how to fix said machines, with schematics provided in the back of the user manual. This level of understanding is not as easily possible today, and my understanding grew outward from that.

I think two things, the need to understand low level to work with hardware competently in the past, and that it was fun to work with hardware in the past, have led to a theoretical golden age of people who understood it all.

I have deep understanding of baremetal, right through to frontend. Part of that comes from working with computing as it changed and morphed.

People today are graduating, entering the field, but are starting at a higher level.

One other thing to bear in mind. When I entered this field, it wasn't to make money. Salaries were abysmal, and on top of that, the field was seen as "boring" and "stodgy" to a great many. And there were often even poor employment prospects!

This meant that people who worked in computing prior to 2000 or so, did so because of joy. They didn't think "Oh, I can make a good living here, I choose this job". In fact, people would tell you not to work in computing, who on Earth would hire you!

So people from this era often were in this field, because they were drawn to it not for income, or job security, but instead because it was more important to work with the fun and joy of computing.

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with entering a field to make a living, or for job security, the motivations are different.

An example here ; using a computer is different than building computing. Enjoying using a web browser, enjoying interacting online, that is not "enjoying computing". Yet most people I speak of, were building circuit boards, coding in basic, when kids.

How many CS graduates were coding apps, building webpages, for 100% fun, without any encouragement when 5?

So I think the same capability is there, it is just that most people today are not interested in computing. They just happen to make a living there, and so those enjoying computing as a primary are awash in a sea of those who couldn't really care less.

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#47

Post by patrakov »

silverfox17 wrote: post #11

This seems a bit generalized. Yes, infrastructure as code/etc. are becoming more prevalent, but underneath there are still systems running. While a lot of jobs can abstract away these things, they are still there, and very real. If more people had an understanding of the underlying operating systems and file systems we could mitigate a lot of vulnerabilities, or find performance issues that may otherwise be obstructe…

Another part of the problem is that developers are often discouraged or outright not allowed to work with machines, due to "it's not your job" kind of arguments, or corporate security enforced by auditors.

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#48

Post by ClumsyPilot »

keyle wrote: post #8

I grew up with spectrums and ms-dos with a turbo and a reset button. I feel sad for my kids who will grow up with iPads and Windows 14 PCs with not the slightest clue on how things are running and the OS shielding them from crashing the thing or running viruses for fun. Same things for young lads that come out of university today with their degrees. They're well spoken and can recite algo theory like nothing but stil…

"Have we reached that level of the civilisation that goes extinct, for forgetting how its own inner machines work?"

extending this logic. modt people in the wedt can't go food, connect plumbing or fix a broken chair. only 10% of the people will find correct ancor for drywall or fix a flat on a bycicle

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#49

Post by bronxpockfabz »

silverfox17 wrote: post #19
unboxingelf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing kubernetes to a sysadmin manually provisioning a LAMP stack is like comparing a home kitchen to commercial factory. They can both make a pizza, but one can make an order of magnitude more - at same time. They’re solving two different problems.

They are, but a lot of people think they need a commercial kitchen to make a bagel now a days, because they've only worked in commercial kitchens.

Developers deploying static website in 2022 using K8S be like: https://xkcd.com/1319/

Re: The Lost Art of System Administration

#50

Post by erwan577 »

Syonyk wrote: post #26
keyle wrote: post #8

I grew up with spectrums and ms-dos with a turbo and a reset button. I feel sad for my kids who will grow up with iPads and Windows 14 PCs with not the slightest clue on how things are running and the OS shielding them from crashing the thing or running viruses for fun. Same things for young lads that come out of university today with their degrees. They're well spoken and can recite algo theory like nothing but stil…

> Have we reached that level of the civilisation that goes extinct, for forgetting how its own inner machines work? Probably. Almost nobody under the age of 40 works in the "deep weeds" anymore (firmware, kernel, casually "Ring 0 and below" spaces). A decade ago, it was about 30. I'm the last wave, it seems, of people in these spaces, and that's quite terrifying. But I get it. The hardware is maddeningly complex, rap…

In my experience, your point is mostly true in academia and business settings. The "foundation" layer of CS only brings a negligible number of jobs.

But with the global availability and affordability of computing devices plus the global knowledge base of the web curious geeks never had so much opportunities to learn and practice.

Here is just a link which i hope will bring some joy to your day : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28422...

Other sources of hope are retro computing communities, emulation devs, FPGA scene (Mister) for hardware side, assembly devs / optimization communities for software side.

Hardware changes slowly make current system design choices obsolete. Persistent RAM, TBs of RAM will require low level OS redesign sooner than expected.

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