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alphagov / government-service-design-manual

Government Service Design Manual
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual
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Revert "Properly capitalise DevOps" #623

Closed garethr closed 7 years ago

garethr commented 8 years ago

Reverts alphagov/government-service-design-manual#593

This change made me terribly sad :(

The conversation on https://github.com/alphagov/government-service-design-manual/pull/82#issuecomment-16284855 made it clear that this was on purpose.

Devops is not a portmanteau. The definition of which is:

A portmanteau (Listeni/pɔrtˈmæntoʊ/, /ˌpɔrtmænˈtoʊ/; plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux /-ˈtoʊz/) or    
portmanteau word is a linguistic blend of words, in which parts of multiple words, or their phones   
(sounds), *and their meanings* are combined into a new word

Emphasis mine. Devops, as stated on the page, is a cultural and professional movement. It does not combine the meanings of the two words unless you're doing it wrong.

nickstenning commented 8 years ago

Hey, look, another unsolicited opinion: :+1:

samjsharpe commented 8 years ago

:+1: This would have made me sad too if I'd spotted it before @garethr did

ajlanghorn commented 8 years ago

I agree with @garethr when he says that "Devops is a cultural and professional movement", and have no qualms with that argument. The definition of the word portmanteau Gareth provides allows this argument to be made, but if you take a definition other than Wikipedia's - say, the OUP's (since the OED is behind a paywall, and I haven't readily got access) - then my argument, I find, continues to make sense:

Consisting of or combining two or more aspects

In this case, these aspects are of software engineering, where a relationship between the development and operation of the software being engineered has always been important in the development lifecycle. When coined in the 19th Century by Carroll in Through The Looking-Glass, he noted that smog was a portmanteau combining smoke and fog: to attain what we know as smog today, both fog and smoke, as an intensifier, are required.

By using the word Devops without a capitalised O, you appear to me, at least, to be suggesting that solid operations practices don't intensify sound software development, which seems to be at odds with the entire cultural movement behind DevOps. If you don't build in solid operations practices in to development teams, then are you not simply allowing either separate Devops teams to exist, or just reverting to the whole 'throw it over the wall' methodology of old?

nickstenning commented 8 years ago

By using the word Devops without a capitalised O, you appear to me, at least, to be suggesting that solid operations practices don't intensify sound software development, which seems to be at odds with the entire cultural movement behind DevOps.

The opposite is true.

Devops is about far more than simply combining the skills and practices of developers with the skills and practices of operators. Calling it "DevOps" suggests to the reader that by doing nothing more than smooshing these two silos together, you have achieved your goal. "Devops," on the other hand, is simply a word, a label, on which to hang an ongoing conversation.

alexmuller commented 7 years ago

I think we've circumvented this by not using the word devops in the service manual anymore. If you feel strongly about that please leave feedback on the relevant pages on GOV.UK and your comments will get routed to the right people. We're not using this repo as the source of the service manual anymore. Thanks!