Re: "I'm not sure what everyone thinks devOps is..."
What it appears to be is inexperienced developers egged-on by equally naïve startup managers acting as if they know better than everyone else and promising they can deliver sooner. Any developer can deliver 'sooner'. The trick is to pretend that concepts such as planning, documentation, robustness, defensive design, (what might be collectively termed 'software engineering') are simply unnecessary.
There is nothing new in the idea that developers end up supporting their applications in the field. It happens all the time, and many developers will have cut their teeth in small firms where there was no other choice. The only thing that is 'new' are the people who seem to think that it's a new concept just because there's a new buzzword to slap on it.
A smart man by the name of Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás famously wrote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to end up with their head on a stick and a red-hot poker up the botty*".
*Sorry, that should read "repeat it".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
