> [...] I asked if there was room for developing our own solutions sometimes [...] > [...] my area was server infrastructure You see, a sysadmin in such an en

> [...] I asked if there was room for developing our own solutions sometimes [...] > [...] my area was server infrastructure You see, a sysadmin in such an environment is not expected to write programs. That's not in his job description. On the other hand, he probably is free to write scripts and configuration. I never bothered with asking if I, as a sysadmin, can write a service that I will use myself, nor I bothered with asking what language should I use. (This way I learned Erlang.) My job was to keep services running as intended, and how -- it was up to me. It would need to be very hostile environment to prevent sysadmins from writing their tools. Though your last paragraph suggests it was hostile.