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I think this was linked on HN the other day, and it basically covers anyone using RHEL: https://boringtechnology.club/ God, I think you can tell the real engin

I think this was linked on HN the other day, and it basically covers anyone using RHEL: https://boringtechnology.club/ God, I think you can tell the real engineers that have gone through the trial by fire and the ones that haven't simply by how much they agree with that presentation. At some point in your career, at 2AM when your debugging that fantastic new opensource library, for the 10th time, that you rewrote everything because it did exactly what you needed, and made you a hero for a week, you switch from gabbing the latest cool thing to picking those old technologies that everyone knows why they suck. Because knowing why something sucks when you pick it, is more important than knowing why its good. RHEL sucks because in 10 years you will be running some horrendously "outdated" software. Its fantastic because over those 10 years you will have made a pile of money selling your product and adding features rather than spending cycles being an upgrade monkey for things you didn't know you needed until someone sold them to you. And your customers, they don't care what OS your running as long as its reliable. Which is something RH provides in spades.

chunkyks 4y ago
Ten years, yep, sounds about right. We're finally getting rid of our last few RHEL6 boxes. It got pretty long in the tooth at the end there, but it never gave me any hassle.
bombcar 4y ago
Especially if you know why it sucks you can work around the suckage; but 99% of everything sucks, so if you don't know why the new shiny thing sucks, you're gonna have to find that out yourself, under fire. (This can even happen between various old and established things; if you know MySQL and all its warts well, perhaps switching to the relatively unknown PostgreSQL "because it's better" isn't the best use of your time. You should be able to explain why and why not before making the switch. When in doubt, do what everyone else is doing - unless it's your differentiator.)
pnutjam 4y ago
In the software world, RH is not just old, it's practically antique. Their kernel age can really hold you back. Compare it to the way SLES releases their minor versions. I've done alot of work with RH, but I do not recommend it or enjoy it.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  If all you are doing is running a webserver, java app, and database the kernel version pretty much doesn't matter. This is the use case most companies are in.

chunkyks 4y ago

Ten years, yep, sounds about right. We're finally getting rid of our last few RHEL6 boxes. It got pretty long in the tooth at the end there, but it never gave me any hassle.

bombcar 4y ago

Especially if you know why it sucks you can work around the suckage; but 99% of everything sucks, so if you don't know why the new shiny thing sucks, you're gonna have to find that out yourself, under fire. (This can even happen between various old and established things; if you know MySQL and all its warts well, perhaps switching to the relatively unknown PostgreSQL "because it's better" isn't the best use of your time. You should be able to explain why and why not before making the switch. When in doubt, do what everyone else is doing - unless it's your differentiator.)

pnutjam 4y ago

In the software world, RH is not just old, it's practically antique. Their kernel age can really hold you back. Compare it to the way SLES releases their minor versions. I've done alot of work with RH, but I do not recommend it or enjoy it.

_-david-_ 4y ago
If all you are doing is running a webserver, java app, and database the kernel version pretty much doesn't matter. This is the use case most companies are in.