They are different but also related. Programmers that don't know basics about network are very often poor programmers as well. Most programmers must be able to

They are different but also related. Programmers that don't know basics about network are very often poor programmers as well. Most programmers must be able to set up build servers, test environments etc that they need. Of cause the sysadmin can do it for them, but in that case they have to wait until he have time, and even then they will get poorer understanding of the system. Also a lot of programmers need to know network basics because their application has a network component. It is also important for a programmer to understand what he need to make a system administration friendly, like easy to install and upgrade, sensible logs when things go wrong etc. They don't need to be able to take over the sysadmin's job the next day, but should understand what the job is about. Sysadmins on the other hand need to at least be able to script common tasks and write plugins for monitoring software and be able do some customization of the systems. They don't need to be able to, or use the methods for developing large complex system, but I expect a good sysadmin to know programming and scripting in some form.