Re: [SAGE] Programmers as.. sysadmins..

[Elizabeth Zwicky <zwicky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 30, 2008, at 1:48 PM, Dustin Puryear wrote:
> P.S. Yes, I know that "it depends on the person". I'm generalizing,  
> but I'm also saying that my generalization tends to be correct on  
> this point. ;)

As far as I can tell, it doesn't depend on the person so much as it  
depends on the situation.
I am capable of being a great sysadmin. Currently I am paid to  
program. Also, I do some
sysadmin, on the side. Oh, I am so, so bad at it. (Hey, wanna come  
run our computers? Please?)

Why am I bad it? If I have to touch a machine, I have to page in  
whole piles of stuff I don't
normally think about. My brain is already full. And if I have to  
update a software package?
Oh, just shoot me now.  Read a syslog? Crap, has it been doing that  
for long? As long as I
have logs for... say who set up this log rotation anyway?  It doesn't  
help that the answer is
never "I did!"

I totally get it. I just don't have the cycles to do it. And if I  
make the cycles, that will use up
brain cells I need for my real job, the one they're not going to hire  
somebody else to
do shortly, the one I need to be good at.

So yeah, pay me to program or pay me to administer systems. You could  
even pay me
to administer systems and write relevant programs. But if you're  
paying me to program
something else, I will either be a lousy sysadmin, or I will be a  
lousy programmer (and
then you will fire me, so where's the joy in that?) or I will grow a  
new head. And I've
never succeeded with the two heads thing.

	Elizabeth
	zwicky@xxxxxxxx

P.S. Did I mention we have an open position for a sysadmin at $WORK?