Cloud, DevOps: In Defense of Doing It Wrong

I am just awful at watching training videos and remembering the content. Which feels like a fair trade-off from the world for my ability to remember most things that I read with good fidelity. A place where this problem comes to an (unexpected) head is in DevOps and cloud architectures.

AWS and Azure are moving so fast they have trouble keeping up with written documentation. The written documentation usually exists, and isn't terrible, but is usually missing the most recent iterative developments.

Especially as a network engineer, the old model for architecting a system was to sit and read the architectural books. OSI standards don't really go and change on you, so the information can be presented in many different ways, boiled down by excellent authors, and presented in an accurate way that'll stand the test of time.

For instance, I know when I started studying for a CCIE (Cisco expert networking certification) one of the most recommended books to purchase and study was a volume that came out in the mid 90s, when I was learning how to tie my shoes and starting to read chapter books.

...the pace of iteration and invention within the technology space is increasing.

But I'm sure most of the folks reading this from technology fields feel this - the pace of iteration and invention within the technology space is increasing. Every week it seems like a new cloud functionality is released that layers up what that provider is offering, or a new devops framework, module, or practice is developed that can help increase the efficiency of what you and your team are doing.

That's not to say that the old methods and tools you're using will be deprecated (although it sometimes does!), but usually that you're designing for the state of the art from weeks, months, or years ago, and your competitors might be designing for the state of the art today.

It has a tremendously negative effective on the "tribal knowledge" of a team as new tools and practices are implemented. No longer does the cisco networking guru stay at the top of their game just by renewing their CCIE every few years with the same knowledge they had years ago - now we're trying to level up as fast as we can, and so is everyone else.

...we're trying to level up as fast as we can, and so is everyone else.

So Let's Do It Wrong

Which brings me to my point. The tools and technologies we use aren't going to slow down, and the documentation around them will continue to be sub-par. There's no way to become a paper expert at "cloud" or "devops" - the only way to get there as an expert is to DO it.

So deploy your own cloud, learn how your devops tools work by doing it wrong, and then iterating, and then doing it a bit less wrong, etc. Each time you do it wrong you learn a valuable lesson that can't have been learned elsewhere.

Each time you do it wrong you learn a value lesson that couldn't have been learned elsewhere.

So GO - build, break, iterate. Let's build this thing.
kyler