I agree that keeping a system as simple as possible is a good idea. But, you may want to take a step back and consider why (as of this writing) every single com

I agree that keeping a system as simple as possible is a good idea. But, you may want to take a step back and consider why (as of this writing) every single comment from you—and nobody else’s—is grey in this thread. (It’s not often on HN that you see two luminaries such as you and 'tptacek get into such a vigorous and apparently one-sided debate.) I was going to attempt to summarize both sides of the argument here, but instead I think it’s better if I just suggest that you take some time to attempt doing that yourself and try to understand the points that everyone else is trying to make. I don’t think it’s your point about excess complexity that’s garnering the downvotes (at least, I hope it isn’t), but rather (a) that you’ve tarred a very broad swathe of software with exactly the same brush, refusing to acknowledge the significant differences in design, implementation, and use between such diverse softwares as Kubernetes and Ansible; and (b) the dogmatism about there being no conceivable need for such any such tools under any circumstances whatsoever. I’d be very interested in a blog post (if one hasn’t been published already) about how system management is done at Sourcehut. A lot of people (myself included) turn to the tools you’re disparaging to help them manage things like change tracking and testing server configurations before applying to production, and it would be interesting to read about how you manage these sorts of problems without introducing a tool to do it.