Slightly ranty: Ugh I've been feeling this recently in a few areas. I think a lot of it comes down to imprecise technology and assumptions that are made from that terminology.

1.) We have a very large, powerful server we are using for webapps/database. I wanted a simple way to "orchestrate" containers on it (from a friendly web interface or something). I've come to the conclusion that such a solution does not exist - it's either CLI (docker/docker compose) or run kubernetes (which I tried, and got it working, but it's too complicated for me right now, even on one server. Maybe someday)

2.) I want to aggregate various logs from the apps running on the server, and be able to visualize them in something like Grafana. Some currently log to their own postgres database, others to a file. The answer to this is to install half a dozen (or more) services, each with their own config language, quirks, and 200 page manuals, and hook it all together. The good news is I can use a "simple" config since I have less than 100GB of logs a day (wtf?, I have more like 50MB a day))

There seems to be a completely missing middle class of software/devops/sysadmin information. It's either toy programs or "web-scale" 1000 node clusters.

But coming back to the article, it's really frustrating to try to talk to others or find answers. "I want to aggregate logs" causes people to think my logging needs are bigger than they really are. Same with "container orchestration". And then I get told I'm doing it wrong (which believe me, under my current constraints, is the best we can do). I guess overall I wish people would respect my current constraints.