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DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

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Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#91

Post by GordonS »

christopoulos wrote: post #81
headmelted wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite like this as a good resource: https://agilemanifesto.org/ . Whatever gets the work done and doesn't cause unnecessary burdens while adding no measurable value is good with me at this point. I'd make do with anything but Agile, which needs to be shot. Out of a cannon. Into the Sun.

Genuinely curious, what is it that you don’t like about Agile? I mean, the concept, the processes? The lack of something or too much of something?

Not the parent, but I agree fully with their point - agile is good; but there is a difference between "agile" and "Agile".

Especially in the enterprise world, agile has been overran by worthless certifications and so-called "Agile" consultants/experts, who broadly fall into 1 of 2 groups: project managers looking to cash in, and technically inept "senior developers" looking to cash in by turning consultant.

Every one of which has their own incredibly dogmatic view of what it means to be Agile. And all of whom are skilled bullshit artists, adept at gaining the ear of upper management, proficienct at indoctrinating them into "the one true way"TM. Every one proficient at making developers miserable - all while charging exorbitant fees, and leaving just in time so management is convinced the failures are down to the heathen devs not following The Agile Way.

Standups where you literally have to stand up (simultaneously, even if spread across 3 continents and numerous time zones) and invariably go on for an hour, constant complaints (and of course meetings) about stories not finished before the sprint ends, endless meetings about the line on the bastard burndown chart, backlog refinements that last days or even weeks (invariably followed by story refinements that last days), telling the devs "decisions are up to the team... but you will choose my way", meaningless identikit retrospectives when the devs just want out so they can actually ship something...

Honestly, I'm not sure whether these "consultants" actually believe the dogmatic, quasi-religious snake-oil BS they are selling, or they know full well, but know just as well how much money they make from it.

All I know, is these people give agile a bad reputation, and bring absolute misery to many a developer.

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#92

Post by chooseaname »

headmelted wrote: post #73
SamuelAdams wrote: post #15

Personally I think DevOps is like religion. It means whatever someone wants it to mean. Some companies think DevOps means having an automated pipeline for building, testing, and shipping code. Other companies think it means micro-services. Others think it means making developers do DBA / SysAdmin work. All of these things are fine for companies to do. How you run your org is on you. But I wish companies would go deep…

> Personally I think DevOps is like religion As long as no-one is knocking on my door asking if I have five minutes to discuss Agile development methodologies. I could reasonably defend most of what people attach to the "DevOps" buzzword as sane practices most of us were already doing before the hoopla. Agile (with a capital A) is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to the software industry. Kill off that…

My pet peeve with agile is it is so rigid at most places. Our team had a bug a while back. We all failed to understand something until it was getting QA'd. We told the PO that we'd need at least part of a sprint to fix it and asked if we could get that prioritized in the next sprint. You would have thought we'd asked to kill someone. We wasted a couple hours debating why it couldn't be finished in this the last day of the sprint. WTF?

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#93

Post by tempguy9999 »

christopoulos wrote: post #81
headmelted wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite like this as a good resource: https://agilemanifesto.org/ . Whatever gets the work done and doesn't cause unnecessary burdens while adding no measurable value is good with me at this point. I'd make do with anything but Agile, which needs to be shot. Out of a cannon. Into the Sun.

Genuinely curious, what is it that you don’t like about Agile? I mean, the concept, the processes? The lack of something or too much of something?

My experience of that which has been called 'agile' is that it's an excuse by programmers not to do the boring stuff, so they can got straight into the coding.

Not to plan, or even think too much, definitely not to document (sometimes not write anything down at all), often not to test except in a token form and sometimes not even that.

Is that agile? That's how 'agile' has been done where I work anyway. Maybe I've been unlucky but 'agile' like that is a loathsome, unprofessional practice that can't produce good results.

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#96

Post by Izkata »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #78
arendtio wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I wish companies would go deeper than "DevOps" when putting up job posting requirements. I am not sure this problem is limited to DevOps. Once I applied for a job thinking I understood the job description. During the interview, I had to find out that they put only half the job in the description (the good parts). Afterward, I took a look on the job description again asking myself if I misinterpreted the descrip…

Firms don't want you to know it, but they are struggling to hire competent IT professionals to an extreme degree. Recruiters are being regularly ghosted (like they used to do to candidates) and turn over is increasing. That's why you see them resulting to tricks like this. One thing to keep in mind is that most managers working today cut their teeth when unemployment was at 10% or so, as such they really only know ab…

> Recruiters are being regularly ghosted (like they used to do to candidates)

Not sure if this is the same thing (with "ghosted"), but I have 3 rock-bottom criteria before I'll respond to a recruiter's email:

* Send to the email on my resume, not my personal one.

* Show that they've read (or at least keyword-matched) my resume.

* Something in the job description should at least be vaguely enticing, such as a technology I have on my resume. The same thing can hit both points 2 and 3, the depending on how the email is structured.

In nearly 10 years, a grand total of one recruiter got all these points. Half of them failed on the first one.

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#97

Post by christopoulos »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #93
christopoulos wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, what is it that you don’t like about Agile? I mean, the concept, the processes? The lack of something or too much of something?

My experience of that which has been called 'agile' is that it's an excuse by programmers not to do the boring stuff, so they can got straight into the coding. Not to plan, or even think too much, definitely not to document (sometimes not write anything down at all ), often not to test except in a token form and sometimes not even that. Is that agile? That's how 'agile' has been done where I work anyway. Maybe I've b…

Yes, I understand. While I’ve never only attributed that to Agile alone, but also this sort of brogrammer-code-is-the-real-product, it sometimes feels like a maturing industry sort of rolled back into its teenage years. Diagrams? Solution models (up front thinking)? Document for future reference? Nah, we don’t want to do that.

It’s sad. Just recently had an experience like this with developers I manage. I do loathe the brogrammer culture more than anything...

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#99

Post by icedchai »

headmelted wrote: post #73
SamuelAdams wrote: post #15

Personally I think DevOps is like religion. It means whatever someone wants it to mean. Some companies think DevOps means having an automated pipeline for building, testing, and shipping code. Other companies think it means micro-services. Others think it means making developers do DBA / SysAdmin work. All of these things are fine for companies to do. How you run your org is on you. But I wish companies would go deep…

> Personally I think DevOps is like religion As long as no-one is knocking on my door asking if I have five minutes to discuss Agile development methodologies. I could reasonably defend most of what people attach to the "DevOps" buzzword as sane practices most of us were already doing before the hoopla. Agile (with a capital A) is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to the software industry. Kill off that…

I once worked at a place full of Agile cultists, including a bunch of "certified" "coaches." They spent about 1/4th of the time in planning meetings, retros, grooming sessions, sending emails about updating percentage complete on jira tickets, etc.

They made some of the dumbest technical decisions I have ever seen, were perpetually rewriting things, changing core APIs, breaking other parts of the system. The stuff barely worked, and this was after 5 years and dozens and dozens of developers.

The place was so dysfunctional, you could not even create your own branch in source control. You had to request it from the IT group that maintained the "enterprise" SCM server. The IT groups were doing their own form of Agile, so these requests could take weeks.

Truly awful.

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#100

Post by wikibob »

chooseaname wrote: post #92
headmelted wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I think DevOps is like religion As long as no-one is knocking on my door asking if I have five minutes to discuss Agile development methodologies. I could reasonably defend most of what people attach to the "DevOps" buzzword as sane practices most of us were already doing before the hoopla. Agile (with a capital A) is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to the software industry. Kill off that…

My pet peeve with agile is it is so rigid at most places. Our team had a bug a while back. We all failed to understand something until it was getting QA'd. We told the PO that we'd need at least part of a sprint to fix it and asked if we could get that prioritized in the next sprint. You would have thought we'd asked to kill someone. We wasted a couple hours debating why it couldn't be finished in this the last day o…

This is literally the opposite of the agile manifesto and the original intent and the origins from Lean manufacturing.

Take a look at original agile folks who discuss this extensively on twitter.

Look at John Cutler's incredible blog posts: https://medium.com/@johnpcutler

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