Programming, Systems, Network: seperate worlds?

Post #69,466 by kmself 12/17/02 7:42:22 PM Reply	Programming, Systems, Network: seperate worlds? \r\n [It seems that you're advocating] a career path that leads away from\r\nprogramming and getting into networking and security administration.\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n No, I'm advocating filling in skills you feel you're deficient with,\r\non your own (answering the second part of your post). There are plenty\r\nof projects to get involved if you'd like, and having your name listed\r\namong the credits of a free software project is a real and\r\nreferenceable accomplishment. Hell, I've had people contact me\r\nover two-line patches I hardly consider to be "programming" \r\n\r\n That said, there's a lot of interconnectivity between systems\r\nadministration, networking, programming, and data management. If you do\r\nlearn enough of the areas you're weak in to strengthen your creds,\r\nyou're ahead of the game. \r\n\r\n When I did SAS work, I considered a major part (> 50%) of my\r\nproductivity to be tied to familiarity with my preferred environment\r\n(Unix). I strongly advocate getting to know your neighborhood, wherever\r\nit may be. \r\n\r\n \r\n While those are both well and good, they can be major pains in the\r\nposterior when something undesirable happens and your back gets painted\r\nwith a bulls-eye (Code Red, Nimda, etc. anyone?) I enjoy programming\r\nand wish to retain that as my primary function, but it's frustrating to\r\nsee other langauges favored in the job ads, knowing that I will not\r\nlearn them in my current position. \r\n \r\n\r\n There are solutions you can turn to to minimize security issues. And\r\nprogrammers should be specifically aware of the security\r\nenvironment in which they operated. I see opportunity here,\r\nLincoln. \r\n --\r\n Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n [link\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n [link\|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/\|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n \r\n Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
Post #70,248 by broomberg 12/21/02 1:16:27 PM Reply	Agreed, esp systems stuff. I've noticed a 2 tier value system for programmers. Code monkees know a language and may be expert in it, but they lack an understanding of the environment in which it runs. So they make insane assumptions about the performance, network lag time, nfs disk availability, file size restrictions, permission issue, database dependencies, uptime requirements, etc, etc, etc. They code in a perfect world, and try to run in the real world. No matter how good they are in their given language, lack of awareness of the tools and environmnet kills them. Make them look like idiots. Even worse, since they DO know a large amount about the specific language, they tend to ponticifate about it. They initially seem bright to management, which then give them some trust. They blow the project and then go into hiding while someone else reimplements in a tenth of the time. Career killer when you screw your boss. A C programmer that spends a week crafting a utility that I can do with 3 Perl scripts piped together in 10 minutes is worthless. Might has well have a profession hand tooling buggy whips. On the other hand, a Perl programmer that knows C and lots of Unix utilities is a gold mine. They can whip out the easy Perl stuff in seconds, and hand tool the CPU intensive stuff in C as needed, and use neither when a 'cat \| sort \| awk' script is all that is really needed.
Post #70,249 by ben_tilly 12/21/02 1:52:13 PM Reply	That reminds me of a comment about CPAN... A comment about the story at [link\|http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/12/1616209\|http://use.perl.org/...=02/11/12/1616209] in particular. I forget who said it, or where, but a summary I saw said: A large part of the reason why Perl has CPAN and other languages do not is that a lot of sysadmins use Perl. Therefore some are willing to cobble together systems to support Perl, and others are willing to donate resources to make those systems work. It is quick, it is dirty, but it is there, works, and grows. Cheers, Ben "Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly." - [link\|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html\|Walter Mead]
Post #70,291 by tonytib 12/21/02 9:01:33 PM Reply	What about wrench monkeys? This week...let's see, getting our combined C++/VB/Python system to blow cold air. Then, today, start off with replacing a crappy French worm gear rotary stage with a US direct drive rotary stage. At least the ME did an excellent job -- everything fit together perfectly. Now, I'm figuring out how to wire the stage in electrically with the least hassle. Then, when that's done, I have to get the motion controller and overall software configured properly for the new motor. Hopefully, we'll be hiring another software developer in Q1, but it'll be someone who can learn rapidly on the job and whose idea of a system knowledge includes mechanical & electrical systems. Tony

Welcome to IWETHEY!