> And so we have a mess that has the sysadmin throwing up their hands, disabling all the tools, and making immutable config files just to get back to basic static file functionality.
I’m not a big fan of sysadmins coasting on their existing knowledge, and this sentiment sums up what I object to precisely. Complexity has increased somewhat since the Slackware days, and it doesn’t always seem to be for the best, but that’s no excuse for disabling it.
Expressing this viewpoint in an interview would materially harm a sysadmin candidate’s chances: it suggests that they are inflexible, unable to adapt to change, and prefer to simply sweep issues under a rug rather than document them and resolve them.
I empathize with the desire to set it all aside and go back to bare metal, but it’s not a position I would take as much pride in.
In my opinion, the current mess with resolv.conf is a case of accidental complexity. I don't think there's anything wrong with disabling badly designed systems that aren't useful for the problem at hand, assuming the admin is managing an environment where none of those tools are actually needed (which is not at all uncommon in a enterprise setting).
I’m not a big fan of sysadmins coasting on their existing knowledge, and this sentiment sums up what I object to precisely. Complexity has increased somewhat since the Slackware days, and it doesn’t always seem to be for the best, but that’s no excuse for disabling it.
Expressing this viewpoint in an interview would materially harm a sysadmin candidate’s chances: it suggests that they are inflexible, unable to adapt to change, and prefer to simply sweep issues under a rug rather than document them and resolve them.
I empathize with the desire to set it all aside and go back to bare metal, but it’s not a position I would take as much pride in.