The 5 Dysfunctions of an engineering team

Management concepts like this one deserve frequent reminders. Thank you, Michael, for blogging the link and sharing your own thoughts.  Organizations in which I have been a member fall into these patterns of failure from time to time, so recording a reminder here will be useful. The original book when it came out was great and the sequel, "overcoming the 5 dysfunctions of a team" was a great refresher.

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On a somewhat related note, another set of authors and books worthy of frequent reminders are the Crucial Conversations team who also wrote Influencer. Don't fall into the "serenity trap."

Systems Administration & Ops IT is not DevOps

I love rants like this one.  All of the points the author makes are well-taken.  Just as we re-labeled manual testing "software test engineering" or "quality assurance," so too are we now calling systems administration and data center operations "DevOps," as though the label itself will reap the benefits of true software development and maintenance for better operability.

https://leebriggs.co.uk/blog/2022/06/21/devops-is-a-failure

Breaking News von Frank Schätzing

Ich bin sehr enttäuscht, weil Schätzing gut schreibt. Die Handlungsstränge und die Story sind gut ausgearbeitet. Das Buch hat mehrere fatale Mängel: Es gibt keine arabischen Schriftzeichen. Alle berühmten Persönlichkeiten haben deutsche Werte, Kultur und Politik. Das Buch ist historisch ungenau. 1/5 Sterne.

InfoQ on DevOps Trends 2022

There is not much actionable information in this new publication on InfoQ and the odd fashion trend in 2022 to confuse concepts such as Observability with unrelated technologies (WASM, really?) continues to accelerate.  This trend reminds me of the tech venture capitalists' use of buzzwords in 1997. My favorite was "Java Compliant."

reminders about importance, urgency, mindful focus

Michael reminds us that those simple "ringing telephone" urgent-not-important examples from pithy self-help sources are not nearly as useful as thoughtful considerations of "flow," unplanned interruptions, shifting priorities, unknown unknowns, and false precision.  The source to which he links covers aspects of urgency we don't normally consider and is also worth reading.

Ironclads by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I liked this short, tight story, despite the inconsistent magic system & unrealistic close combat. 4/5 Stars.

Tales from the Folly by Ben Aaronovitch

I made a bad impulse purchase of this collection and was sorely disappointed.  Three of the 13 stories were ok.  The others are boring and not worth reading. 2/5 Stars.  Don't read this one.

The Dying Citizen by Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) reminds his readers what it means to be a "citizen" of a nation state, using his expertise of ancient Greek and Roman society and guiding readers through is lens of the 16th & 17th century Enlightenment, the Federalists including the philosophy  and ideals behind the creation of the US republic, and US history in the last 150 years.  Hanson's interpretation is that a citizen is economically autonomous. VDH repeats through many examples that the notion of citizenship requires a large, strong middle class who have "material security."  Otherwise, VDH warns, all societies divide into "masters and peasants." This concept is similar to Karl Marx's analyses of capitalism in most of Marx's books and essays, except that Marx perceives ownership participation in the "means of production" to be "material security." Most of The Dying Citizen is VDH's analysis of the "new American peasantry," exemplified by student-debt-ridden younger folks, the USA's embrace of self-destructive policies in globalization, and "tribal" loyalties to ethnic or cultural groups instead of their nation state (place). VDH goes into details of the popularity and people who support these trends, including sanctuary cities, political correctness commissars, intentional destruction of civics education, and other societal & economic  trends that have destroyed US citizenship.

Unfortunately, VDH spends too many pages analyzing the presidency of Donald J Trump specifically instead of illuminating the decades-long changes in the relationship among people living in the USA to their nation state of residence, and citizenship globally in the 21st century. I expect more from such a great scholar.  3/5 Stars.

 

Grafana at KubeCon 2022

Here is a collection of KubeCon 2022 talks given by folks from Grafana Labs.

if you must: node.js in docker

Bret Fisher has updated a comprehensive review of node.js in docker, including node image selection, CI, CD, which docker image to use, etc.  I am not a fan of node; but it is very popular so I, and everyone else, need to support it.  And since k8s domination is sweeping the fashion trends around the world, we must all bow to our container masters and support these heavy frameworks as well.  I disagree with Bret's analysis of security concerns for a container base distro.  I firmly believe there is no attack service like no attack surface, so I personally prefer the distroless image maintained by the evil search giant (ESG).  Bret's analysis is a point-in-time, so tracking and re-analyzing his choices is still a moving target.  In general, one should make a selection based on long-term viability and projected maintenance support of one's components (get on a train and stay on it for a few years).  But his analysis is fantastic and worth reading.