How 'DevOps' Is Killing the Developer

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 15, 2014 @02:05PM from the in-the-server-room-with-the-lamp-stack dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Python guru Jeff Knupp writes about his frustration with the so-called 'DevOps' movement, an effort to blend development jobs with operations positions. It's an artifact of startup culture, and while it might make sense when you only have a few employees and a focus on simply getting it running rather than getting it running right, Knupp feels it has no place in bigger, more established companies. He says, 'Somewhere along the way, however, we tricked ourselves into thinking that because, at any one time, a start-up developer had to take on different roles he or she should actually be all those things at once. If such people even existed, "full-stack" developers still wouldn't be used as they should. Rather than temporarily taking on a single role for a short period of time, then transitioning into the next role, they are meant to be performing all the roles, all the time. And here's what really sucks: most good developers can almost pull this off.' Knupp adds, 'The effect of all of this is to destroy the role of "developer" and replace it with a sort of "technology utility-player". Every developer I know got into programming because they actually enjoyed doing it (at one point). You do a disservice to everyone involved when you force your brightest people to take on additional roles.'"

2 of 226 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Author is dumb by w_dragon · 2014-04-15 14:21 · Score: 3, Informative

Full-stack developer generally refers to a developer who can code the full software stack - UI, middleware, and backend. Also lots of QA people can code - automated testing is mostly coding - and lots of developers can't test at all. Author needs a bit more real-world experience.
It's all about timeframes... by QuietLagoon · 2014-04-15 15:26 · Score: 3, Informative

.
Operations people work in a timeframe of minutes to days
Developers work in a timeframe of weeks to months
Researchers work in a timeframe of years to decades
When you take a developer, who thinks in terms of months, and task that person to think in terms of minutes and hours, you are wasting a resource.
When you make someone respond to an overly wide range of timeframe-based events, the short term events always crowd out the longer term events.
Have you ever noticed that companies locate their research divisions away from the day-to-day operations divisions? It is to keep the timeframes separate.