The difference? Every time there's a new switch, they learn it. Not my experience at all(1), and I've had one foot in the system administration field and one i

The difference? Every time there's a new switch, they learn it. Not my experience at all(1), and I've had one foot in the system administration field and one in the programming field for the last 12 years. You mention IPv6, but that was an incremental change overall... Pretty much if you knew how to admin a cisco switch back then, you're doing the same stuff now, same for your linux boxen, aside from a few tweaks here & there the basics are all the same. Maybe 20% changes, tops (compare the first edition of RHCE with the latest), 80% remains the same. Programming though, every few years something becomes "must have/do"... C++ gives way to Java gives way to PHP gives way to Rails gives way to Node... (1)This doesn't really apply to the Microsoft stack, which apparently comes out with a new paradigm every few years.