I pretty quickly came to see the devops movement as a pretty blatant way for management to give a promotion to sysops, and a demotion to programmers. Beyond that, in a medium or large organization, devops runs counter to economic theory: I have a comparative advantage in writing code, which means that the organization should optimize that benefit by having me do that a lot, rather than being a mediocre admin (which I am -- I really suck at it). But there are guys who just love the operating system stuff, and have a real comparative advantage at managing systems. So they should do that as much as possible. But that's not to say that an administrator shouldn't program when needed or when they want to, and I shouldn't install stuff on systems when needed or when I want to. Barring personal interest and ambition, specialization is actually a basic economic premise, and devops taken at face value runs counter to that.

OMG! When will slashdot stop posting repetitive, whiny "I'm old, can I still program" stories!? I guess I have another 20 years of "Am I too old..." headlines to look forward to before they finally push me into my grave.

1) who says the bricklayer doesn't get paid for subsequent work!??!!??!! 2) Seriously, and I mean this very seriously -- it's time for you to find a new boss. The faster you get to an environment that values your time and effort, the happier you'll be.