6 ms·

+1 in all points, specially in the learning part. Continuous learning is a must IMHO to work in this sector

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
I’ve had a hard time adjusting to the AWS devops phenomenon. There is so much damn uninteresting configuration and button-pushing, rather than engineering, that I get bored with it. Yet I feel social pressures to get various AWS devops certifications to remain on top of things. Previously used Jenkins successfully for many years so I have devops experience, but there is something about EC2 instances, elastic beanstalk, load balancing, etc at AWS that just makes me want to retire (yet I still get tremendous joy from programming and designing).
- bitwize 6y ago
  Get used to it. Engineers are expensive, so if they can be replaced with button pushers they will be. Learn to push the buttons if you want to stay in the industry. You'll protect your value as an engineer because an engineer who can push buttons is more valuable than an engineer and a button pusher (especially if the company can get away with not paying an increased salary for the increased responsibility, which they usually can).
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  How is Jenkins not button pushing? And besides, AWS has a stable API and a set of CLI tools to actually manage everything in the cloud without button pushing. I am 29 now. Used Jenkins about 5 years ago because I couldn't find a much better alternative for a single-developer workflow, but it's a glorious pile of buttons that has 0 consistency and/or an API.
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    It is indeed also a pile of buttons.
  - milquetoastaf 6y ago
    Uhh Jenkins has a positively massive API - and there's no button pushing needed, just use a Jenkinsfile https://www.jenkins.io/doc/book/pipeline/jenkinsfile/ https://www.jenkins.io/doc/book/pipeline/jenkinsfile/
  - oblio 6y ago
    It has a much bigger API than you'd expect, have you even tried to use it? :-)
    - heavenlyblue 6y ago
      Yeah. Can you create a user via the API?
      - oblio 6y ago
        First of all, Jenkins was created in 2005, when REST was barely past the stage of being a gleam in Roy Fielding's eye. Yet, almost from the start, almost every page had an API (you'd add /api after the URL for its corresponding HTML page). With XML, JSON and Python (!) formats, with built-in search and filtering. Secondly, to your point, there you go: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17716242/creating-user-in-jenkins-via-api https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17716242/creating-user-i... I'm pretty sure that the reason there is no REST API for it is because you're supposed to be using your favorite back-end (LDAP, AD, etc.), with which Jenkins can integrate. It's quite disingenuous to complain about the Jenkins APIs, there are a lot of them. They're not perfect or designed necessarily like something you'd design in 2020, but they are there.
  - Morgangeek 6y ago
    We manage, install and configure Jenkins as code, without clicking buttons. You can fully automate jenkins activity and setup, from install to job creation, execution, plugin updates, config changes validation etc. Of course only power users will fully use Jenkins power.
    - heavenlyblue 6y ago
      Jenkins isn’t really worth the hassle today in my opinion - there are a bunch of new build tools that solve the problem better without all the garbage that comes with it. And they also look better. For god’s sake, you could even use GitLab today. What does Jenkins give you? What is there to defend?
      - Morgangeek 6y ago
        For complex pipelines and code reuse (plugins, pipeline libraries, scripting) between projects, Jenkins offers more features for power users, and its maturity has been proven while GitLab CI still suffers from his young age. Other examples with the Cons at the end of this article : https://medium.com/sv-blog/migrating-from-jenkins-to-gitlab-ci-dsl-side-by-side-38933983fbe5 https://medium.com/sv-blog/migrating-from-jenkins-to-gitlab-... and https://stackoverflow.com/a/37430097/2309958 https://stackoverflow.com/a/37430097/2309958 (and I can probably find a lot more :-) )
- milquetoastaf 6y ago
  Learn Terraform or build your own abstract tooling on top of them. Infrastructure as code is a cool, exciting space and I think we've ways to go !
- Maria_micro 6y ago
  You can try out Microtica (https://microtica.com https://microtica.com), a tool that abstracts the complex cloud setups and provides easy configurations from the UI, so you don't have to spend time on boring stuff and continue the engineering you love. Try it out and let me know what you think.

I’ve had a hard time adjusting to the AWS devops phenomenon. There is so much damn uninteresting configuration and button-pushing, rather than engineering, that I get bored with it. Yet I feel social pressures to get various AWS devops certifications to remain on top of things. Previously used Jenkins successfully for many years so I have devops experience, but there is something about EC2 instances, elastic beanstalk, load balancing, etc at AWS that just makes me want to retire (yet I still get tremendous joy from programming and designing).

bitwize 6y ago
Get used to it. Engineers are expensive, so if they can be replaced with button pushers they will be. Learn to push the buttons if you want to stay in the industry. You'll protect your value as an engineer because an engineer who can push buttons is more valuable than an engineer and a button pusher (especially if the company can get away with not paying an increased salary for the increased responsibility, which they usually can).
heavenlyblue 6y ago
How is Jenkins not button pushing? And besides, AWS has a stable API and a set of CLI tools to actually manage everything in the cloud without button pushing. I am 29 now. Used Jenkins about 5 years ago because I couldn't find a much better alternative for a single-developer workflow, but it's a glorious pile of buttons that has 0 consistency and/or an API.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  It is indeed also a pile of buttons.
- milquetoastaf 6y ago
  Uhh Jenkins has a positively massive API - and there's no button pushing needed, just use a Jenkinsfile https://www.jenkins.io/doc/book/pipeline/jenkinsfile/ https://www.jenkins.io/doc/book/pipeline/jenkinsfile/
- oblio 6y ago
  It has a much bigger API than you'd expect, have you even tried to use it? :-)
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    Yeah. Can you create a user via the API?
    - oblio 6y ago
      First of all, Jenkins was created in 2005, when REST was barely past the stage of being a gleam in Roy Fielding's eye. Yet, almost from the start, almost every page had an API (you'd add /api after the URL for its corresponding HTML page). With XML, JSON and Python (!) formats, with built-in search and filtering. Secondly, to your point, there you go: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17716242/creating-user-in-jenkins-via-api https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17716242/creating-user-i... I'm pretty sure that the reason there is no REST API for it is because you're supposed to be using your favorite back-end (LDAP, AD, etc.), with which Jenkins can integrate. It's quite disingenuous to complain about the Jenkins APIs, there are a lot of them. They're not perfect or designed necessarily like something you'd design in 2020, but they are there.
- Morgangeek 6y ago
  We manage, install and configure Jenkins as code, without clicking buttons. You can fully automate jenkins activity and setup, from install to job creation, execution, plugin updates, config changes validation etc. Of course only power users will fully use Jenkins power.
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    Jenkins isn’t really worth the hassle today in my opinion - there are a bunch of new build tools that solve the problem better without all the garbage that comes with it. And they also look better. For god’s sake, you could even use GitLab today. What does Jenkins give you? What is there to defend?
    - Morgangeek 6y ago
      For complex pipelines and code reuse (plugins, pipeline libraries, scripting) between projects, Jenkins offers more features for power users, and its maturity has been proven while GitLab CI still suffers from his young age. Other examples with the Cons at the end of this article : https://medium.com/sv-blog/migrating-from-jenkins-to-gitlab-ci-dsl-side-by-side-38933983fbe5 https://medium.com/sv-blog/migrating-from-jenkins-to-gitlab-... and https://stackoverflow.com/a/37430097/2309958 https://stackoverflow.com/a/37430097/2309958 (and I can probably find a lot more :-) )
milquetoastaf 6y ago
Learn Terraform or build your own abstract tooling on top of them. Infrastructure as code is a cool, exciting space and I think we've ways to go !
Maria_micro 6y ago
You can try out Microtica (https://microtica.com https://microtica.com), a tool that abstracts the complex cloud setups and provides easy configurations from the UI, so you don't have to spend time on boring stuff and continue the engineering you love. Try it out and let me know what you think.