> I think a computer should be able to solve dependencies, search for include dirs, and figure out how to run an arbitrary piece of software by now.
Again, I would assert that Ansible is not the tool for you. You want a comprehensive, dependency-mapping, auto everything detection, autoremediation tool. That doesn't exist right now, for various reasons. I don't disagree with your general direction in the least bit, in fact I appreciate your enthusiasm. However, expecting a cow when you don't see a salt lick is a tad foolhardy. I'll explain below.
> Yes, or zero-button
As someone who has been doing this shit a long, long time, I have to say when I hear someone complaining about something not being in apt I immediately note that this person has not once even dipped their toe in isolated package dependencies and versioning. Even with "teraflops of compute" at their disposal.
> Hell, when I had my first computer in the mid 1990s I had single button installs other than having to swap floppies
MS Word is not a configuration management framework.
> We're trying to build level 5 autonomus cars, which I don't think we'll get to (we'll get to level 4), but I think a computer should be able to solve dependencies, search for include dirs, and figure out how to run an arbitrary piece of software by now.
Software exists that can do this, and you most certainly could in Ansible with some fancy lookups and dynamic group_vars, but you would not know how accomplish this without reading the manual, nor do I believe that you should be able to. I believe that understanding the systems you are configuring and dictating precisely how they should be configured, in code, and automating the regular application of those configurations is exactly the best of what's available right now. That goes for Terraform + Ansible, Docker, k8s, whatever.
But while we're on the topic of autonomy, I take extreme umbrage with your analogy of cars to you, as a systems operator, wanting to consume Ansible as a configuration manager. Ansible isn't the car and you're not the driver here. Maybe somewhere between operator and driver. But the notion that you should be able to simply install this and expect it to magically detect everything that you want it to do is a gross misunderstanding of what this tool is and what exactly it does.
Again, something you would have understood if you had read just a little.
Again, I would assert that Ansible is not the tool for you. You want a comprehensive, dependency-mapping, auto everything detection, autoremediation tool. That doesn't exist right now, for various reasons. I don't disagree with your general direction in the least bit, in fact I appreciate your enthusiasm. However, expecting a cow when you don't see a salt lick is a tad foolhardy. I'll explain below.
> Yes, or zero-button
As someone who has been doing this shit a long, long time, I have to say when I hear someone complaining about something not being in apt I immediately note that this person has not once even dipped their toe in isolated package dependencies and versioning. Even with "teraflops of compute" at their disposal.
> Hell, when I had my first computer in the mid 1990s I had single button installs other than having to swap floppies
MS Word is not a configuration management framework.
> We're trying to build level 5 autonomus cars, which I don't think we'll get to (we'll get to level 4), but I think a computer should be able to solve dependencies, search for include dirs, and figure out how to run an arbitrary piece of software by now.
Software exists that can do this, and you most certainly could in Ansible with some fancy lookups and dynamic group_vars, but you would not know how accomplish this without reading the manual, nor do I believe that you should be able to. I believe that understanding the systems you are configuring and dictating precisely how they should be configured, in code, and automating the regular application of those configurations is exactly the best of what's available right now. That goes for Terraform + Ansible, Docker, k8s, whatever.
But while we're on the topic of autonomy, I take extreme umbrage with your analogy of cars to you, as a systems operator, wanting to consume Ansible as a configuration manager. Ansible isn't the car and you're not the driver here. Maybe somewhere between operator and driver. But the notion that you should be able to simply install this and expect it to magically detect everything that you want it to do is a gross misunderstanding of what this tool is and what exactly it does.
Again, something you would have understood if you had read just a little.