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Even though the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue, this is gatekeeping. Just like in the Unix world of old before the rise of open

Even though the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue, this is gatekeeping. Just like in the Unix world of old before the rise of open source, many system administrators never compile any binary. And that is fine.

notmypenguin 3y ago
It’s not gatekeeping in any sense. Technical skills are required to do technical jobs, and this person asked for any criticism or feedback given by posting a public blog that has, for some bizarre reason, gotten to the front page of hacker news. Wtf. Technical incompetence must be addressed head first, or we risk real world problems
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  > Technical incompetence must be addressed head first, or we risk real world problems Given there's always been a chronic shortage of qualified and experienced technical staff, isn't the the "real" real-world problem here the raising of the barriers-to-entry for sysadmins jobs? I think most companies would rather employ someone who can at-least try to get something done rather than having no-one at all. One of the reasons why "the cloud" is so popular among businesses today is because it frees them up from having to run their own systems and infrastructure (who needs a *nix sysadmin when the AWS and Azure portals let you do everything through a GUI?) - whereas I'm sure many (most?) of those same businesses would honestly prefer retaining possession and sovereignty over their data and applications (especiallly latency-sensitive stuff) - and we all lament how the cloud giveth and the cloud taketh-away - but here we are.
- tinus_hn 3y ago
  Running ‘configure && make && make install’ is hardly a technical skill. Acquiring binaries built elsewhere is fine and saying someone doesn’t qualify if they do that is gatekeeping.
- danaris 3y ago
  "No real X would do Y" is gatekeeping, unless !Y is literally the definition of X.
JdeBP 3y ago
> Even though the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue, Hint: Chris Siebenmann has administered closed source Unices.
- tinus_hn 3y ago
  That is correct, it is ‘user6723’ who is talking about that and I was responding to that user. But nevertheless the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue regarding the subject matter, the arguments are rather confused and nonsensical.
  - JdeBP 3y ago
    > nevertheless the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue Another hint: Chris Siebenmann's posts to comp.unix.wizards can still be found.
    - tinus_hn 3y ago
      > Another hint If you quote only half of the sentence, it suddenly means something else! When used to attack it’s a variation of the venerable ‘straw man’ debate technique. Nice if Mr Siebenmann made insightful comments on a Usenet group about Unix but that doesn’t mean his comments about ARM computers are indisputable. How about you summarize the points in the blog post that you agree with?
    - user6723 3y ago
      Just because someone posts on a mailing list and calls themselves a sys-admin doesn't mean they are one. What the author wrote objectively demonstrates a lack of essential skills and also a lack of temperament for what could be called a sys-admin, and therefore they are ultimately disqualified.
gjvc 3y ago
Having a standard installation for tools and libraries goes a long way to being independent of operating system updates. Compiling and making versioned, packages of them (for example, in /opt/corp/prod/lang/gcc/12.3.0/... ) means that there can be a known good set of tools independent of operating system version and when the latter is upgraded, users can still build their products using the same paths and versions. This is before the widespread use of containers, but doesn't change the advantages of having a reliable set of installed tools where users are in control of what versions they use.

notmypenguin 3y ago

It’s not gatekeeping in any sense. Technical skills are required to do technical jobs, and this person asked for any criticism or feedback given by posting a public blog that has, for some bizarre reason, gotten to the front page of hacker news. Wtf. Technical incompetence must be addressed head first, or we risk real world problems

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
> Technical incompetence must be addressed head first, or we risk real world problems Given there's always been a chronic shortage of qualified and experienced technical staff, isn't the the "real" real-world problem here the raising of the barriers-to-entry for sysadmins jobs? I think most companies would rather employ someone who can at-least try to get something done rather than having no-one at all. One of the reasons why "the cloud" is so popular among businesses today is because it frees them up from having to run their own systems and infrastructure (who needs a *nix sysadmin when the AWS and Azure portals let you do everything through a GUI?) - whereas I'm sure many (most?) of those same businesses would honestly prefer retaining possession and sovereignty over their data and applications (especiallly latency-sensitive stuff) - and we all lament how the cloud giveth and the cloud taketh-away - but here we are.
tinus_hn 3y ago
Running ‘configure && make && make install’ is hardly a technical skill. Acquiring binaries built elsewhere is fine and saying someone doesn’t qualify if they do that is gatekeeping.
danaris 3y ago
"No real X would do Y" is gatekeeping, unless !Y is literally the definition of X.

JdeBP 3y ago

> Even though the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue, Hint: Chris Siebenmann has administered closed source Unices.

tinus_hn 3y ago
That is correct, it is ‘user6723’ who is talking about that and I was responding to that user. But nevertheless the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue regarding the subject matter, the arguments are rather confused and nonsensical.
- JdeBP 3y ago
  > nevertheless the blog appears to be by someone who doesn’t have much of a clue Another hint: Chris Siebenmann's posts to comp.unix.wizards can still be found.
  - tinus_hn 3y ago
    > Another hint If you quote only half of the sentence, it suddenly means something else! When used to attack it’s a variation of the venerable ‘straw man’ debate technique. Nice if Mr Siebenmann made insightful comments on a Usenet group about Unix but that doesn’t mean his comments about ARM computers are indisputable. How about you summarize the points in the blog post that you agree with?
  - user6723 3y ago
    Just because someone posts on a mailing list and calls themselves a sys-admin doesn't mean they are one. What the author wrote objectively demonstrates a lack of essential skills and also a lack of temperament for what could be called a sys-admin, and therefore they are ultimately disqualified.

gjvc 3y ago

Having a standard installation for tools and libraries goes a long way to being independent of operating system updates. Compiling and making versioned, packages of them (for example, in /opt/corp/prod/lang/gcc/12.3.0/... ) means that there can be a known good set of tools independent of operating system version and when the latter is upgraded, users can still build their products using the same paths and versions. This is before the widespread use of containers, but doesn't change the advantages of having a reliable set of installed tools where users are in control of what versions they use.