I'm not the smartest developer or DBA. I find myself mystified at times by Itzik's posts on T-SQL queries and I'm amazed at times by the complex systems that I see the DCAC people put together. I can usually figure things out (sometimes by asking the authors a question), but it's not always easy to do. We have some truly gifted, incredibly intelligent people in this business.

I am, however, effective. I have been very successful in my career at getting things done well enough, things that work well, meet the needs of my client/employer, and meeting deadlines. I don't just slap things together, but think about them, build them, test them (don't forget this), and then make sure they're working when they're deployed.

Sometimes this might take a few PRs or patches for patches, but I get things done. And my customers/clients are happy.

I saw this post on Linked In noting Platform Engineering is Dead, which is a great title, but not really true, and not quite reflected in the piece. The author worked on the Software Delivery Enablement team, which is what the platform engineering team is supposed to do.

I see similar complaints about DevOps, and previously saw complaints about Cloud computing or Agile or Scrum or SOLID. There have been similar complaints about how some new methodology or idea isn't working and should be abandoned in favor of this other new thing.

Ultimately, near the end of the piece on Linked In, there is this:"we also knew how to help them use solutions to deliver software better, and we partnered with them instead of inflicting things upon them."

This is what Software Engineering should be. In waterfall, we want to have customers tell us what they want and build that. Often customers don't know what they want, so we decided Agile would help. DevOps is a way of talking about a partnership between developers and operations that still delivers what the customer wants, quickly.

Platform Engineering or Software Delivery Enablement or whatever name you give it is still partnering with customers to deliver what they need. Not what you think they need or what you want to build, but what they need.

Whenever Agile or Scrum or DevOps or Platform Engineering doesn't work, it's because you've forgotten that this is a partnership. That's what effective engineering is, and it's what I've practiced. Partnering with others to achieve our aims.