“Blame is a Four Letter Word”: What alt-rock band Cake has to say about DevOps
A presentation at DevOpsDays Chicago 2020 by Fen Aldrich
BLAME IS A FOUR LETTER WORD A CAKE guide to DevOps crayzeigh.com/cake #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh 1
crayzeigh.com/cake #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh 2
crayzeigh.com/cake PRESS PLAY NOW #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh 3
She doesn’t care whether or not [the datacenter is actually on fire] just as long as [you’re still delivering value] -Italian Leather Sofa #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [lightly interpreted] 4
She doesn’t care whether or not [the datacenter is actually on fire] just as long as [you’re still delivering value] -Italian Leather Sofa #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [lightly interpreted] 5
To me, coming from you [Blame] is a four letter word -Friend is a Four Letter Word #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [reading between the lines] 6
There’s a long line of cars and they’re trying to get through There’s no single explanation, there’s no central destination… We don’t wonder where we’re going or remember where we’ve been We’ve got to keep this traffic flowing and accept a little sin… We’ve gotta keep this fire burning and accept a little grey… -Long Line of Cars #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [Like LA traffic, there is no root cause] 7
There’s a long line of cars and they’re trying to get through There’s no single explanation, there’s no central destination… We don’t wonder where we’re going or remember where we’ve been We’ve got to keep this traffic flowing and accept a little sin… We’ve gotta keep this fire burning and accept a little grey… -Long Line of Cars #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [Like LA traffic, there is no root cause] 8
And this long line of cars is all because of you… And this long line of cars is all because of me. youtu.be/gfINfi2K1lE -Long Line of Cars #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [nearly blameless, anyway] 9
My intentions are good and earnest and true But under my hood is internal combustion power And Satan is my motor… Satan is the only one who seems to understand -Satan is My Motor #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [AWS, a necessary evil] 10
My intentions are good and earnest and true But under my hood is internal combustion power And Satan is my motor… Satan is the only one who seems to understand -Satan is My Motor #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [AWS, a necessary evil] 11
I don’t want to wonder If this is a blunder I don’t want to worry Whether we’re going to stay together ‘Till we die… I want to love you madly -Love You Madly #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [Vendor lock-in is the real relationship killer] 12
I don’t want to fake it I just want to make it… I don’t want to hold back… I don’t want to think back to that one thing that I know I Should have done… I don’t want to doubt you Know everything about you… I want to love you madly #DevOpsDays -Love You Madly @crayzeigh [serverless, v hot in 2001] 13
Well your [AMI] collection looks shiny and costly How much did you pay for your bad [lambda function]? And how much did you spend on the [data egress racket]? Is it you or [VC funds] in this income tax bracket? -Rock and Roll Lifestyle #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [Cake had deep feelings about Amazon] 14
Now tickets to [Re:Invent] And drinking at clubs Sometimes for [services] you haven’t even heard of And how much did you pay for your [Amazon] T-shirt That proves you were there That you heard of them first? How can you afford your [Amazon] lifestyle? -[Amazon] Lifestyle #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [Ask Corey Quinn if you need help getting control] 15
Stick shifts and SAFe-ty belts Bucket seats have all got to go -Stickshifts and Safetybelts #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [SAFe isn’t Agile and I’m pretty sure Scrum is a disease] 16
Stick shifts and SAFe-ty belts Bucket seats have all got to go -Stickshifts and Safetybelts #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [SAFe isn’t Agile and I’m pretty sure Scrum is a disease] 17
Well I have passed the test Just like all the rest But never really understood The reasons why they took it In the first place -Pentagram #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [Certifications, Sacrificial rites, what’s the difference?] 18
We are building a religion We are making it bigger… It is useless to resist… We’re the only ones to turn to When your castles turn to sand… Take a bite of this apple… #DevOpsDays -Comfort Eagle @crayzeigh [Join the cargo cult] 19
As soon as you’re born you start dying So you might as well have a good time AARON ALDRICH 🌠: SPEAKING.CRAYZEIGH.COM 🐦: @CRAYZEIGH ) ❣: EMOTIONALAPI.COM : OSMIHELP.ORG #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh 20
DevOps may have been a phrase only coined in 2009, but Cake has been singing about it since the 90’s. We’re Going the Distance with this one and finding all the points of advice and hidden messages we can.
Video
Resources
The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.
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Blame is a Four Letter Word: (Semi)Original Sound Track
This is the backing track for the talk. Press play when you see the first pig slide.
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Beyond Blameless - Rein Henrichs; REdeploy 2020
In the aftermath of John Allspaw’s influential Blameless Post-Mortems, blamelessness has become a shibboleth for modern production operations teams: Is our culture blameless? Are our incident reviews blameless? But it seems that something has been lost in translation.
Organizations that try to implement blamelessness without understanding blame end up making behaviors and activities taboo because they can lead to blame even when they can lead to learning instead. When we throw the baby of learning out with the bathwater of blaming, we miss out on vital opportunities to become more resilient.
Rein is a strange sort of software developer who spends more time thinking about systems made with people than systems made with computers. He believes that most technical problems are really people problems, and that people problems can be solved by listening, caring, and empowering others. Talking about himself in the third person makes him uncomfortable, but he is working on it. He also wrote a database in Haskell once, so he has that going for him, which is nice.
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