4 ms·
My current employer has about 50 programmers and another 50 semi-programmer scientists all working on Linux. None of them have root access to any machine excep
by zerohp 16y ago
My current employer has about 50 programmers and another 50 semi-programmer scientists all working on Linux. None of them have root access to any machine except their OSX laptop and most don't know how to install software thats more difficult than drag and drop.
There's certainly multiple levels of comfort with software installation in this environment. Many of our good programmers get frustrated and end up asking systems to install programs or work almost entirely on their OSX laptop. Personally I don't find it too limiting because I am comfortable installing in my home directory.
- trafficlight 16y agoI used to work as a sysadmin at a small development shop that had 6 programmers. Those guys didn't have root access either, but it's not because they weren't competent; it was the only way we could keep the machines consistent. Otherwise, people were installing things all over the place and, in a lot of cases, the same program would be installed differently on each machine.
- Goladus 16y agoThe reason system administrators have responsibility for installing and configuring software on production systems isn't because programmers don't know (or can't learn) how to do it themselves. It's typically because production systems are multi-user with uptime SLAs, meaning that software must be installed and configured in a reliable, repeatable way that works for everyone, not just one person. The fact that sysadmins do often have that responsibility, though, means that sometimes programmers have less incentive to learn it themselves.