Congratulations, You're Elmo
It will happen to all of us at some point. You’ve been writing puppet manifests for a few years now; you’ve moved your modules into some form of version control, you’ve squashed some nasty inheritance bugs, and you’ve refactored your base class more times than you care to admit. All that messing around with ERBs may have even convinced you to pick up some ruby along the way.
And then one day it hits you:
Uh, I think I’m a developer.
As a sysadmin you’ve often felt like you’re stranded on an island. No one seems to truly understand what it is you do. What configuration management is, and why you should spend half your day in a text editor when you could be out fixing that one server, or building those new servers, or adding that user or something. I’m sorry, what do you do here again?
But you don’t have to feel alone anymore. You’ve just unwittingly inducted yourself into a very large community. A community of people who value things like code quality. Like design patterns. Like testing stuff. A community of giants saying to you: “Come, stand on our shoulders.” Strangely, a wave of acceptance washes over you.
For a moment you panic: after all, haven’t the developers been your primary source for headaches for years now? And now you’ve joined their ranks? You look around at your colleagues in fear that they’ve noticed your ogre-ish transformation. But no, that’s not it at all. The Ops in you hasn’t suddenly fled your body. You’ve always been about building infrastructure that doesn’t suck; the only difference is now you’re able to do it with unparalleled precision.
And besides, these aren’t the same developers you once fought with. They’re searching too, just like you. You’re even starting to hear terms like continuous delivery and cross-functional teams. This is what you’ve been trying to work towards, even if you didn’t realize it until now.
This freshly trodden world you find yourself in now is perpetually full of wonder. Things seem new and exciting, and at times your excitement can be a bit too much for those who don’t share your passion. Oh, yeah, you love sharing your toys too. That’s why you started this blog; to share what you learn along the way. Sure, it makes you sound like some wide-eyed muppet on Sesame Street, but that’s okay:
You’re DevOps Elmo.
It will happen to all of us at some point. You’ve been writing puppet manifests for a few years now; you’ve moved your modules into some form of version control, you’ve squashed some nasty inheritance bugs, and you’ve refactored your base class more times than you care to admit. All that messing around with ERBs may have even convinced you to pick up some ruby along the way.
And then one day it hits you:
Uh, I think I’m a developer.
As a sysadmin you’ve often felt like you’re stranded on an island. No one seems to truly understand what it is you do. What configuration management is, and why you should spend half your day in a text editor when you could be out fixing that one server, or building those new servers, or adding that user or something. I’m sorry, what do you do here again?
But you don’t have to feel alone anymore. You’ve just unwittingly inducted yourself into a very large community. A community of people who value things like code quality. Like design patterns. Like testing stuff. A community of giants saying to you: “Come, stand on our shoulders.” Strangely, a wave of acceptance washes over you.
For a moment you panic: after all, haven’t the developers been your primary source for headaches for years now? And now you’ve joined their ranks? You look around at your colleagues in fear that they’ve noticed your ogre-ish transformation. But no, that’s not it at all. The Ops in you hasn’t suddenly fled your body. You’ve always been about building infrastructure that doesn’t suck; the only difference is now you’re able to do it with unparalleled precision.
And besides, these aren’t the same developers you once fought with. They’re searching too, just like you. You’re even starting to hear terms like continuous delivery and cross-functional teams. This is what you’ve been trying to work towards, even if you didn’t realize it until now.
This freshly trodden world you find yourself in now is perpetually full of wonder. Things seem new and exciting, and at times your excitement can be a bit too much for those who don’t share your passion. Oh, yeah, you love sharing your toys too. That’s why you started this blog; to share what you learn along the way. Sure, it makes you sound like some wide-eyed muppet on Sesame Street, but that’s okay:
You’re DevOps Elmo.