> a classical "sysadmin" as that term was used in the 80s/90s job roles was usually not a hard-core C++ programmer I did not work in the 80s but the sysadmins

> a classical "sysadmin" as that term was used in the 80s/90s job roles was usually not a hard-core C++ programmer I did not work in the 80s but the sysadmins I worked with in the 90s were the most skilled C programmers I've ever worked with. Unless you mean C++ specifically, which has always been a bit divisive that world, UNIX has always been inseparable from C. UNIX, C and TCP/IP were joined at the hip. You would have to try hard to avoid learning at least the basics. If anything sysadmins (or SREs or DevOps Engineers) these days program less, not more. So much have moved into frameworks and yaml. As reliability expectations of individual components tends to be lesser now, things like inspecting core dumps are not as common. The mockery of the non working sysadmin has been a running joke as long as the job existed (BOFH, anyone). But the idea of simpler times is mostly a chimera. Things have certainly changed and become more complex, but our brains are still as limited as they have always been. On a related note, "waterfall" was also never really a development model. It's just something to call processes more rigid than you'd like. Software developers have always had to contend with fluid requirements, with the expected varying outcomes.