So I’ve been thinking about The Epochalypse (that magic moment in 2038, specifically 2038-01-19T03:14:07, when the time_t counters will turn over in every remaining 32-bit Unix system in the world. And we’ll find out just how many half-forgotten embedded systems are vulnerable).

This is something I have been aware of for quite some time now, but it is interesting to me. The possible implications of this are quite astounding. No doubt some clever people will throw some serious effort at the problem, and we won’t have such a huge fallout and everyone will likely go “Ho Hum, what was all the fuss about”.

I remember when this happened with Y2K / The Millennium Bug, plenty of people were convinced that it had been a big non event and that everyone had over hyped it, but in reality it was offset by a huge effort and investment in the years leading up to the event that made it so boring.

Funnily enough, the mental leap that lead me to this topic was thoughts arising from the notion that we are in the midst of a “DevOps driven, post ITIL World”.

This is an interesting idea, that I have heard expressed either directly or indirectly from several bloggers, podcasters, and people I have spoken to in the industry. I think this suffers a little bit from the same kind of jaded attitude.

Reflecting on this, I can see how people get here. ITIL like any other deity or pantheon has spawned a complex and convoluted organised religion that has been coopted and corrupted by those who wish to elevate their own wealth, power or agenda.
Thousands of hours of productivity have been slaughtered at the alter of ITIL.

This is actually true of other similar religious ICT topics, such as Agile (Scrum in particular) and ironically DevOps itself.

This doesn’t make the subjects of worship themselves evil or bad, but is a clear pattern that will almost certainly repeat over and over again.

What am I saying? I don’t know really. It is wrong to say that DevOps (whatever that means to you. So long as you say you are doing it like all the cool kids) is right and ITIL is wrong. ITIL is actually a very solid and relevant framework for ICT service management, it is not mutually exclusive from other approaches or methodologies like DevOps or Agile.