I once had an interaction with a CI/CD fanatic. You know the type – dogmatic and bristling with frameworks, tools and well-formed opinions.
I’ve also had a few pleasant chats with software engineers. These are the artisans. The crafters. The ones that ignore the industry hype. The ones that are deep in knowledge and experience.
These are the ones who are responsible for actual systems rather than parachuted-in consultant types.
Real software engineers underpin a great many of our organisations. They are the people who don’t need to rely on the opinion of others to build great software. And a lot of them don’t need to use tools or techniques that are industrial in nature to achieve quality code.
Why is that?
Because latter-day CI/CD and DevOps are very much the creation of consultants and product companies that predicate their businesses on selling you more and more tools and techniques.
You don’t need CI. You don’t need CD. You don’t need DevOps. Your customer doesn’t see the value in any of those investments.
All you need are people that understand how to build good software and are willing to support it.
Richard Bown is a writer and freelance software engineer. He is the author of HUMAN SOFTWARE a novel where small-town folk go up against AI and heartless corporate profiteering. Find out more and buy at humansoftwarebook.com
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