6 ms·

>If you got something interesting that doesn't involve me being a system administrator Is it me, or is this a running meme/problem for him?

zedshaw 16y ago
No it's not you, I do get asked to be a sysadmin quite often. I have no idea why. It's not something I'm good at. I did for a short time in college to pay tuition a decade ago. I don't enjoy it. I never apply for it. For some bizarre reason, people ask if I want to be a sysadmin out of the blue. Drives me crazy.
- starkfist 16y ago
  It's not that bizarre, you write software mainly used by systems administrators. I used to work with one of the guys who wrote apache, and now work with a guy who wrote most of one of the popular NOSQL engines. And they both work as systems administrators. Not "useradd" systems administrators (although they are technically in that part of the org chart) but more like what Google calls "SREs." Rather than explaining what it is, this guy's google groups post does a better job: http://www.sage.org/lists/sage-members-archive/2005/msg02937.html http://www.sage.org/lists/sage-members-archive/2005/msg02937... If they just want you to add user accounts, that's weird. But SRE style jobs are where a lot of guys who write famous open source systems software end up. from the google groups post: "Yes, sysadmin skills are essential here, however we also require a very strong skillset in development, automation, high-level systems architecture, networking, statistics and general problem-solving." sounds like a description of zed!
  - mistermann 16y ago
    Uhhhhh....oh, why bother.
    - mistermann 16y ago
      Ah, nice downvotes, I guess a good lesson to not comment on smartass one liners who can later edit out the entire theme and content of their original post. The original post I commented on: "Maybe because you write software used by sysadmins?"
      - bad_user 16y ago
        No, the lesson is to not add one-liners that don't add anything to the conversation. Even after posting the original message, I really don't get your comment on it.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Google says something like that for every job. From what I know about SREs, the "programming" you do is basically shell scripts to automate sysadmin stuff. Programming, sure, but the most boring type possible.
    - starkfist 16y ago
      I like automating sysadmin stuff. :(
    - spudlyo 16y ago
      That kind of programming to me is fun. The most boring type of programming possible in my opinion is front end web development.
      - starkfist 16y ago
        Personally, I cannot stand the type of programming which is encapsulating a bunch of "BUSINESS LOGIC" in code. I.e. "apply this much tax unless we are in florida or new york, then apply this much. except on the day after christmas..." or even worse, "restrict these parts of the site to the accounting department, except for gary because he's in fiance, too" etc.
        DannoHung 16y ago
        That's not so bad if you're given the freedom to not be a fucking idiot about it.
        cglee 16y ago
        I actually find that pretty interesting because it allows me to learn about different types of businesses I otherwise wouldn't be exposed to. I guess the key is to work in a field you're interested in.
        neilk 16y ago
        You know how Clark Kent's boss, in the first Superman movie, says "A good reporter doesn't get great stories — a good reporter makes them great."? Same thing with programming. If you are given enough freedom to do the job right, and you can find a way to motivate yourself, there are no bad programming jobs. Zed Shaw himself has bragged about a system he wrote which does the kind of business logic you mention -- except by his description it's a meta-programming system that can add rules almost as fast as they can think them up. That sounds like some sort of constraint solver, which is among the fanciest kind of programming around.
  - keyist 16y ago
    what Google calls "SREs." Rather than explaining what it is, this guy's google groups post... I liked OmniTI's description of a role akin to SRE and the progression through the web operations career path they identify: http://omniti.com/seeds/what-is-web-operations http://omniti.com/seeds/what-is-web-operations . "This role is in no way fitting for failed developers, it is for developers/engineers that have outpaced their career path. One that has a deep understanding of how things work: a complete systemic view of general site architecture."
- pavs 16y ago
  Just curious, what would be your ideal job? Assuming you want to work for someone and not just on your own projects.
  - zedshaw 16y ago
    Right now, find a company doing something bad ass with HTTP and then make Mongrel2 blow their socks off. Then repeat it again and again until I've got something. Either that, or getting a Ph.D. in Education.
    - jrosoff 16y ago
      What's your sales pitch for mongrel2 against things like Unicorn & Passenger. The new features of mongrel2 seem awesome (particularly multiple protocols over the same socket) and given the success of mongrel, I think we all have high hopes for mongrel2. But I'm curious what your thoughts are on what the "killer apps" are for mongrel2 that make it the superior solution to the alternatives.
      - alnayyir 16y ago
        > (particularly multiple protocols over the same socket) > "killer apps" are for mongrel2 You just said it. Bypassing any connection limitations on the browser.
      - ryan-allen 16y ago
        I'd say the pitch against Unicorn and Passenger is that it's language agnostic. There are other languages than Ruby, you know!
      - zedshaw 16y ago
        Depends on who I'm talking to. Operations guy: Mongrel2 is a ops wet dream. Totally automatable and you can use it to easily carve your infrastructure up as needed to scale and deal with all the random crap programmers throw at you. Programmers: Mongrel2 is future proof and gives you want you need with low friction. Wanna do sockets? Got it. Use any language? Got it. Change up the request flow to work around a bug? Got it. Drop Scala for Rails? Got it. Or something like that.
- mark_l_watson 16y ago
  Hello Zed. I find myself doing some sysadmin work, not by plan, but it happens that way. Something needs to be working right now, it is easiest to just do it, etc. Also, scaling and deployment issues come up, and best to just deal with stuff. The question is what fraction of time is spent on sysadmin vs. development. BTW, I look forward to checking out mongrel2, and I think using the AGPL + optional commercial licensing is a good plan.
  - mark_l_watson 16y ago
    Another comment on AGPL: I both wish that the AGPL became a often-used license and that when required commercial options would be affordable. Obviously developers control the licensing and costs of their creations, but as a for instance, if I could not use AGPL on a customer project: I would be happy to pay about $25 for a VPS license or perhaps $100 for a single server license for good bits of infrastructure software that work better, are more efficient, etc. On the other hand, the neo4j AGPLed project is awesome, I will use it for my own AGPL projects, but the $1000/server cost will probably keep me from being able to use it on customer projects (but maybe not, depending on their budgets). Sorry for the long rant here, but I would like to see a healthy atmosphere for developers producing quality AGPL projects and the community accepting that they need to pay up reasonable fees for non-AGPL use.
    - zedshaw 16y ago
      That's a very good comment, and thanks. I mostly went with the AGPL to hedge my bets. It's much easier to reduce a license's restrictions than to increase them later, and I'd like to go with whatever the market wants at the time. The interesting thing is, other people have had the same sentiment about the AGPL. It seems they actually prefer it plus some small commercial license option. I hadn't really thought people would like the AGPL for servers, but it seems that's what people are liking. At this point I have no idea which direction it'll go, but I'll make a decision once it's more stable and actually runs stuff.

zedshaw 16y ago

No it's not you, I do get asked to be a sysadmin quite often. I have no idea why. It's not something I'm good at. I did for a short time in college to pay tuition a decade ago. I don't enjoy it. I never apply for it. For some bizarre reason, people ask if I want to be a sysadmin out of the blue. Drives me crazy.

starkfist 16y ago
It's not that bizarre, you write software mainly used by systems administrators. I used to work with one of the guys who wrote apache, and now work with a guy who wrote most of one of the popular NOSQL engines. And they both work as systems administrators. Not "useradd" systems administrators (although they are technically in that part of the org chart) but more like what Google calls "SREs." Rather than explaining what it is, this guy's google groups post does a better job: http://www.sage.org/lists/sage-members-archive/2005/msg02937.html http://www.sage.org/lists/sage-members-archive/2005/msg02937... If they just want you to add user accounts, that's weird. But SRE style jobs are where a lot of guys who write famous open source systems software end up. from the google groups post: "Yes, sysadmin skills are essential here, however we also require a very strong skillset in development, automation, high-level systems architecture, networking, statistics and general problem-solving." sounds like a description of zed!
- mistermann 16y ago
  Uhhhhh....oh, why bother.
  - mistermann 16y ago
    Ah, nice downvotes, I guess a good lesson to not comment on smartass one liners who can later edit out the entire theme and content of their original post. The original post I commented on: "Maybe because you write software used by sysadmins?"
    - bad_user 16y ago
      No, the lesson is to not add one-liners that don't add anything to the conversation. Even after posting the original message, I really don't get your comment on it.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Google says something like that for every job. From what I know about SREs, the "programming" you do is basically shell scripts to automate sysadmin stuff. Programming, sure, but the most boring type possible.
  - starkfist 16y ago
    I like automating sysadmin stuff. :(
  - spudlyo 16y ago
    That kind of programming to me is fun. The most boring type of programming possible in my opinion is front end web development.
    - starkfist 16y ago
      Personally, I cannot stand the type of programming which is encapsulating a bunch of "BUSINESS LOGIC" in code. I.e. "apply this much tax unless we are in florida or new york, then apply this much. except on the day after christmas..." or even worse, "restrict these parts of the site to the accounting department, except for gary because he's in fiance, too" etc.
      - DannoHung 16y ago
        That's not so bad if you're given the freedom to not be a fucking idiot about it.
      - cglee 16y ago
        I actually find that pretty interesting because it allows me to learn about different types of businesses I otherwise wouldn't be exposed to. I guess the key is to work in a field you're interested in.
      - neilk 16y ago
        You know how Clark Kent's boss, in the first Superman movie, says "A good reporter doesn't get great stories — a good reporter makes them great."? Same thing with programming. If you are given enough freedom to do the job right, and you can find a way to motivate yourself, there are no bad programming jobs. Zed Shaw himself has bragged about a system he wrote which does the kind of business logic you mention -- except by his description it's a meta-programming system that can add rules almost as fast as they can think them up. That sounds like some sort of constraint solver, which is among the fanciest kind of programming around.
- keyist 16y ago
  what Google calls "SREs." Rather than explaining what it is, this guy's google groups post... I liked OmniTI's description of a role akin to SRE and the progression through the web operations career path they identify: http://omniti.com/seeds/what-is-web-operations http://omniti.com/seeds/what-is-web-operations . "This role is in no way fitting for failed developers, it is for developers/engineers that have outpaced their career path. One that has a deep understanding of how things work: a complete systemic view of general site architecture."
pavs 16y ago
Just curious, what would be your ideal job? Assuming you want to work for someone and not just on your own projects.
- zedshaw 16y ago
  Right now, find a company doing something bad ass with HTTP and then make Mongrel2 blow their socks off. Then repeat it again and again until I've got something. Either that, or getting a Ph.D. in Education.
  - jrosoff 16y ago
    What's your sales pitch for mongrel2 against things like Unicorn & Passenger. The new features of mongrel2 seem awesome (particularly multiple protocols over the same socket) and given the success of mongrel, I think we all have high hopes for mongrel2. But I'm curious what your thoughts are on what the "killer apps" are for mongrel2 that make it the superior solution to the alternatives.
    - alnayyir 16y ago
      > (particularly multiple protocols over the same socket) > "killer apps" are for mongrel2 You just said it. Bypassing any connection limitations on the browser.
    - ryan-allen 16y ago
      I'd say the pitch against Unicorn and Passenger is that it's language agnostic. There are other languages than Ruby, you know!
    - zedshaw 16y ago
      Depends on who I'm talking to. Operations guy: Mongrel2 is a ops wet dream. Totally automatable and you can use it to easily carve your infrastructure up as needed to scale and deal with all the random crap programmers throw at you. Programmers: Mongrel2 is future proof and gives you want you need with low friction. Wanna do sockets? Got it. Use any language? Got it. Change up the request flow to work around a bug? Got it. Drop Scala for Rails? Got it. Or something like that.
mark_l_watson 16y ago
Hello Zed. I find myself doing some sysadmin work, not by plan, but it happens that way. Something needs to be working right now, it is easiest to just do it, etc. Also, scaling and deployment issues come up, and best to just deal with stuff. The question is what fraction of time is spent on sysadmin vs. development. BTW, I look forward to checking out mongrel2, and I think using the AGPL + optional commercial licensing is a good plan.
- mark_l_watson 16y ago
  Another comment on AGPL: I both wish that the AGPL became a often-used license and that when required commercial options would be affordable. Obviously developers control the licensing and costs of their creations, but as a for instance, if I could not use AGPL on a customer project: I would be happy to pay about $25 for a VPS license or perhaps $100 for a single server license for good bits of infrastructure software that work better, are more efficient, etc. On the other hand, the neo4j AGPLed project is awesome, I will use it for my own AGPL projects, but the $1000/server cost will probably keep me from being able to use it on customer projects (but maybe not, depending on their budgets). Sorry for the long rant here, but I would like to see a healthy atmosphere for developers producing quality AGPL projects and the community accepting that they need to pay up reasonable fees for non-AGPL use.
  - zedshaw 16y ago
    That's a very good comment, and thanks. I mostly went with the AGPL to hedge my bets. It's much easier to reduce a license's restrictions than to increase them later, and I'd like to go with whatever the market wants at the time. The interesting thing is, other people have had the same sentiment about the AGPL. It seems they actually prefer it plus some small commercial license option. I hadn't really thought people would like the AGPL for servers, but it seems that's what people are liking. At this point I have no idea which direction it'll go, but I'll make a decision once it's more stable and actually runs stuff.