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Yeah, I worked for 2 years as a sysadmin, and now I'm working on building a website in one of those scripting languages that apparently don't count as programmi

Yeah, I worked for 2 years as a sysadmin, and now I'm working on building a website in one of those scripting languages that apparently don't count as programming, so perhaps I have a better perspective than most on this. The strange conceit of this article is that all sysadmins apparently want to be programmers but just lack the self confidence to actually do it. I think that this is pretty wide of the mark. If anything, sysadmins know how much more stable and reliable mature tools are than the sort of half baked solutions the author is recommending that they push themselves to develop. When you spend your entire day supporting fragile solutions, your first inclination is not usually going to be to put more of those into the world.

CodeMage 13y ago
now I'm working on building a website in one of those scripting languages that apparently don't count as programming The article didn't claim that scripting languages don't count as programming. Despite the heading "scripting isn't programming", it doesn't even really claim that scripting isn't programming: it claims that if you switch from shell scripting language to a compiled language, but you still do most of the stuff by spawning child processes, you're most likely using the wrong tool for the job.
- shawn-furyan 13y ago
  Forgive me for countering hyperbole with hyperbole. She did baldly say in the main content of her article "Scripting isn't programming". It's not a hyperbolic title, it's in the body of the article. She also doesn't counter that assertion. The article is hyperbolic through and through, and I don't care to argue its finer semantic points since the original article was neither nuanced nor subtle.
vacri 13y ago
The strange conceit of this article is that all sysadmins apparently want to be programmers Speaking of conceit, the article didn't actually say or even imply this. You're projecting. It mentioned a line 'most' sysadmins use, then talked about some strategies you can pursue if you want to 'become a programmer'.

CodeMage 13y ago

now I'm working on building a website in one of those scripting languages that apparently don't count as programming The article didn't claim that scripting languages don't count as programming. Despite the heading "scripting isn't programming", it doesn't even really claim that scripting isn't programming: it claims that if you switch from shell scripting language to a compiled language, but you still do most of the stuff by spawning child processes, you're most likely using the wrong tool for the job.

shawn-furyan 13y ago
Forgive me for countering hyperbole with hyperbole. She did baldly say in the main content of her article "Scripting isn't programming". It's not a hyperbolic title, it's in the body of the article. She also doesn't counter that assertion. The article is hyperbolic through and through, and I don't care to argue its finer semantic points since the original article was neither nuanced nor subtle.

vacri 13y ago

The strange conceit of this article is that all sysadmins apparently want to be programmers Speaking of conceit, the article didn't actually say or even imply this. You're projecting. It mentioned a line 'most' sysadmins use, then talked about some strategies you can pursue if you want to 'become a programmer'.