Comment by kkfx

Most companies have terrible infrastructure; they're hardly ever examples to follow. But they also have it because there's a certain widespread mentality among those who work there, which originates on the average student's desktop, where they play with Docker instead of understanding what they're using. This is the origin of many modern software problems: the lack of proper IT training in universities.

MIT came up with "The Missing Semester of Your CS Education" to compensate, but it's nothing compared to what's actually needed. It's assumed that students will figure it out on their own, but that almost never happens, at least not in recent decades. It's also assumed that it's something easy to do on your own, that it can be done quickly, which is certainly not the case and I don't think it ever has been. But the teacher who doesn't know is the first to have that bias.

The exceptional event, even if it doesn't require such a rapid response, still reveals a fundamental problem in your setup. So the question should be: why maintain this complex script when you can do less work with something else? NixOS and Guix are tough nuts to crack at first: NixOS because of its language and poor/outdated/not exactly well-done documentation; Guix because its development is centered away from the desktop and it lacks some elements common in modern distros, etc. But once you learn them, there's much less overhead to solve problems and keep everything updated, much less than maintaining custom scripts.