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Sure, most people working as sysadmins can't code. Then again, most people working as programmers can't code either. People who can really write good code are f
by hhw 13y ago
Sure, most people working as sysadmins can't code. Then again, most people working as programmers can't code either. People who can really write good code are few and far between.
The very best sysadmins are also good coders, and the very best coders are also good sysadmins. The foremost experts on any operating system are the developers that work on them after all. You can never fully understand an operating system without reading the code, and you can't write the most efficient code if you don't fully understand the entire stack the application runs on, operating system included.
As for using tools instead of writing code, what it comes down to is what's the best solution for the problem at hand. A good sysadmin doesn't need to memorize ways to use tools; they know each of the tools well enough to make full use of them. If a task can be done with a one-liner, and has a fixed amount of work to be done, why would you spend more time to implement the same in a programming language, when the execution time is insignificant relative to the development time? Considering the slower higher level languages that are popular nowadays vs the standard tools written in low level C, the execution time may actually end up slower despite the execution savings in running a single process instead of many.
- tete 13y ago> The very best sysadmins are also good coders, and the very best coders are also good sysadmins. I can agree on the first, but the second while surely true in cases is maybe wrong for people doing something completely different, like are more into the academic areas, in really abstract levels, doing big data stuff in completely managed environment. Think about planes. Someone who crafts and maintains them and is close to the metal, maybe is a really good pilot too, because he knows planes in and out, but while really good pilots probably know a lot about planes, they may be focusing on stuff that is really, really far away from crafting one. Still they could be among the most excellent pilots. But then who is who, might depend on whom you ask. I just really find it funny and that's something that kinda came across in the article, how because sysadmins are frequently good in a field of programming that by programmers is considered a field of masters, which are operating systems and all this low level stuff that many programmers have to get to at some point. In a way sysadmins have to do and shell scripts are pretty high level. But it also really shows how it is a lot of two different mindsets.