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"IT people" here, operations guy who keeps the lights on for that software.
It's been my experience developers have no idea how the hardware works, but STRONGLY believe they know more then me.
Devops is also usually more dev than ops, and it shows in the availability numbers.
Yup. Programmers who have only ever been programmers tend to act like god's gift to this world.
As a developer I can freely admit that without the operations people the software I develop would not run anywhere but on my laptop.
I know as much about hardware as a cook knows about his stove and the plates the food is served on – more than the average person but waaaay less than the people producing and maintaining them.
As a devops manager that’s been both, it depends on the group. Ideally a devops group has a few former devs and a few former systems guys.
Honestly, the best devops teams have at least one guy that’s a liaison with IT who is primarily a systems guy but reports to both systems and devops. Why?
It gets you priority IT tickets and access while systems trusts him to do it right. He’s like the crux of every good devops team. He’s an IT hire paid for by the devops team budget as an offering in exchange for priority tickets.
But in general, you’re absolutely right.
Am I the only guy that likes doing devops that has both dev and ops experience and insight? What's with silosing oneself?
I’ve done both, it’s just a rarity to have someone experienced enough in both to be able to cross the lines.
Those are your gems and they’ll stick around as long as you pay them decently.
Hard to find.
Because the problem is that you need
The job is hard to hire for because those 3 in combo is rare. Many developers and systems guys have prickly personalities or specialise in their favourite part of it.
Devops spent have the option of prickly personalities because you have to deal with so many people outside your team that are prickly and that you have to sometimes give bad news to….
Eventually they’ll all be mad at you for SOMETHING….. and you have to let it slide. You have to take their anger and not take it personally…. That’s hard for most people, let alone tech workers that grew up idolising Linus torvalds, or Sheldon cooper and their “I’m so smart that I don’t need to be nice” attitudes.
I've always found this weird. I think to be a good software developer it helps to know what's happening under the hood when you take an action. It certainly helps when you want to optimize memory access for speed etc.
I genuinely do know both sides of the coin. But I do know that the majority of my fellow developers at work most certainly have no clue about how computers work under the hood, or networking for example.
I find it weird because, to be good at software development (and I don't mean, following what the computer science methodology tells you, I mean having an idea of the best way to translate an idea into a logical solution that can be applied in any programming language, and most importantly how to optimize your solution, for example in terms of memory access etc) requires an understanding of the underlying systems. That if you write software that is sending or receiving network packets it certainly helps to understand how that works, at least to consider the best protocols to use.
But, it is definitely true.
. I think to be a good software developer it helps to know what's happening under the hood when you take an action.
There's so many layers of abstractions that it becomes impossible to know everything.
Years ago, I dedicated a lot of time understanding how bytes travel from a server into your router into your computer. Very low-level mastery.
That education is now trivia, because cloud servers, cloudflare, region points, edge-servers, company firewalls... All other barriers that add more and more layers of complexity that I don't have direct access to but can affect the applications I build. And it continues to grow.
Add this to the pile of updates to computer languages, new design patterns to learn, operating system and environment updates...
This is why engineers live alone on a farm after they burn out.
It's not feasible to understand everything under the hood anymore. What's under the hood grows faster than you can pick it up.
It very much depends on how close to hardware they are.
If someone is working with C# or JavaScript, they are about as knowledgeable with hardware as someone working in Excel(I know this statement is tantamount to treason but as far as hardware is concerned it’s true
But if you are working with C or rust or god forbid drivers. You probably know more than the average IT professional you might even have helped correct hardware issues.
Long story short it depends.
More like:
"IT people when software people talk about their requirements"
No, we won't whitelist your entire program folder in Endpoint Protection.
Yep, unrealistic expectations.
Or "you need a 12th gen i7 to run this thing"... the thing is a glorified Avidemux.
Christ, if you could see the abysmal efficiency of business tier SQL code being churned out in the Lowest Bidder mines overseas...
Using a few terrabytes of memory and a stack of processors as high as my knee so they can recreate Excel in a badly rendered .aspx page built in 2003.
As a software person i have to protest at being called out like this. It's the fucking weekend man...stop picking on me for just one damn day.
Ouch yeah that windows endpoint stuff is really rattling though. I get you just can't whitelist some folder without compromising security, but when the "eNdPoInt pRoTeCtIon" just removes dlls and exes you are compiling (and makes your PC crawl) you really hate that shit.
Right click? 40 seconds plz (maybe any of the possible contextual right clicks might be on a virus so lets just check them all once again).
At home I have an old linux pc, and it blows those corpo super pcs out the window.
Rant off :-D
Ah yeah, IT people are chill, always be cool with them is also a good idea, not their fault all this crap exists.
In my experience it’s been IT people telling me you can’t use a certain tool or have more control over your computer cause of their rules.
The expression is appropriate but the meme assumes that im doubting the IT person’s expertise. I’m not, I’m just not liking the rules that get in the way of my work. Some rules do make sense though.
Edit: just wanted to point out, yes I agree, you need the rules, they are still annoying tho.
And the more corporate the organisation the more rules, at least the places I have worked trusts developers enough to give local admin, that takes the edge off many tasks.
I think it's on a case by case basis but having help desk ppl help you out and opening powershell and noodling without any concept of problem solving made me make this face once.
It probably goes both ways, I'm a dev and I assembled computers at 12 yo so I believe I have a lot of experience and knowledge when it comes to hardware. I've also written code for embedded platforms.
IT people in my pov can really come across as enthusiast consumers when it comes to their hardware knowledge.
"did you guys hear Nvidia has the new [marketing term] wow!" . Have you ever thought about what [marketing term] actually does past just reading the marketing announcement?
At the same time I swear to God devs who use macs have no idea how computers work at all and I mean EXCLUDING their skill as a dev. I've had them screen share to see what I imagine is a baby's first day on a computer.
To close this rant: probably goes both ways
Interesting comment on the Mac. At my workplace we can choose between Mac or Windows (no Linux option unfortunately, my personal computer runs Debian). Pretty much all the principle and senior devs go for Mac, install vim, and live in the command line, and I do the same. All the windows people seem over reliant on VSCode, AI apps, and a bunch of other apps Unix people just have cli aliases for and vim shortcuts. I had to get a loaner laptop from work for a week and it was windows. Tried using powershell and installing some other CLI tools and after the first day just shut the laptop and didn’t work until I got back from travel and started using my Mac again.
If you don't have access to Linux, MacOS is the closest commercially available option so it makes sense.
Also please take what I said lightly, I by no means want to bash Mac users and generalize them. It just has been my experience. I'm sure there are thousands of highly competent technical users who prefer Mac.
Agreed. I have colleagues that I write scripts for (I don't do that any more, I stopped and shit stopped working, so they solve things manually now), they don't know shit about scripting... and still don't.
On the other hand, I've had the pleasure of working with a dev that was just this very positive, very friendly person and was also very knowledgeable when it came to hardware, so we were on the same page most of the time. He also accepted most of my code changes and the ones that he didn't, gave him an idea of how to solve it more efficiently. We were a great team to be honest. We're still friends. Don't see him as frequently, but we keep in touch.
I'm both IT and development...and I've caught both sides being utterly wrong because they're only familiar with one and not the other
I don't get it. And I've been both.
Is it about how some software shouldn't need the resources that they demand for?
Meh it's usually for shitty companies that expect their devs to write real software, ssh into things, access databases, but put the same hurdles in front of them as joeblow from sales who can't use an ipad to buy a sandwich without clicking a phishing link. So every new project is slowed down cause it takes weeks of emails and teams conversations to get a damn db sandbox and it's annoying.
On the other hand IT doesn't know you and has millions of issues to attend to
Containerise everything!
Exactly what a dev would say... you guys don't have to deal with that 3rd gen i3 Jenny from accounting is running.
I'm IT and my cousin is software. I had to teach him basic computer maintenance...
I spent a weekend helping my buddy who graduated magna cum laude with an Electrical and Computer Engineering degree build a PC. Given a breadboard and some schematics, he could probably have created working prototypes of half of the components, but figuring out where to put the screw risers under the motherboard? Forget about it.
the User vs Builder relationship has been a bit tense for thousands of years
That's how I look at 90% of the shit "systems" I'm forced to interact with (xiaomi's MIUI, banking apps, govt apps, apps that should've been fucking websites, websites that "gently nudge" you to use the app, electron apps that are windows only)
When trying to request a firewall change IT told me "ports between 1 and 1024 are reserved and can't be used for anything else" so I couldn't be using it for a pure TCP connection, and besides, there would have to be a protocol on top of TCP, just TCP as protocol is obviously wrong. I was using port 20 because it was already open...
as a full stack dev, everything you said has offended me.
port 20 is used for FTP, unless you were using FTP, then go right ahead. Guessing that since you didn't know the protocol you were not using FTP.
port usage reservations are incredibly important to ensure that the system is running within spec and secure. imagine each interface like a party telephone line and the ports are time slots.
your neighborhood has reserved specific times (ports) for everyone to call their relatives. if you use the phone not in your slot (port) your neighbors might get pissed off enough to interrupt your slot. and then it's just chaos from there.
That's the face I've made just yesterday when my friend told me she's now eligible for a subsidized IT mortgage. That thing was one of Russia's last ditch attempts at stopping skilled workers from fucking off to different countries. The problem is, she's a web designer. I guess that counts as IT nowadays, so good for her. But it's bitter to hear as sr. backend tech who never hit the criteria...