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

[Paul Lussier <p.lussier@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Christophe Kalt <sage-members@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> i think the problem is more of clear job responsability.
>
> Either you're a programmer, or a sysadmin.
> People who are trying to be both usually think of one of
> their responsability as primary, and the other one suffers
> from this.  I think that most of what you've seen are
> probably cases of programmers having to do some SA work
> because they have the skills and someone need to get the job
> done.

I can attest to this first hand.  I consider myself first and foremost
a sysadmin.  Over the last year or two I've been trying to transition
into a developer role, but due to various dark forces working against
me, I've been unable to shed my sysadmin duties.  As a result, when
things like the NFS server goes wonky, or the backup server dies with
a drive failure, etc. my first inclination is to spend what it
whatever time it requires to keep the "important systems" running.

This means my product related duties suffer.  Conversely, when we
tried to share some of the sysadmin duties across an otherwise
all-developer team in order to allow me more time to focus on the
product, the systems suffered from neglect since everyone's primary
focus was something other than the infrastructure.  When things broke
because the infrastructure grew too haphazardly without a plan and no
one had a decent idea of how things did, or were supposed to work, we
lost lots of product time trying to fix the infrastructure.

I think a programmer can make a good sysadmin given the following:
 A. They *want* to be a sysadmin
 B. It's their primary focus
 C. They're allowed to have it be their primary focus

I think a sysadmin can make a good programmer provided essentially the
same criteria and the ability to do so.

However... In general, programmers tend to want to program.  That's
the activity they enjoy.  They thrive on the development of a single system
at a very narrowly focused level.

Sysadmins tend to thrive on understanding things at a higher altitude,
and making things work together.

My experience has been the following analogy:

 A Programmer is much like a virtuoso musician.  They know they're
 instrument extremely well.  They may know, and occasionally play
 other instruments, but tend to focus almost exclusively on one.

 A sysadmin is more like the conductor.  They have to know about all
 the instruments, the characteristics of each, how they play and sound
 together and in contrast with others.  Then need to understand the
 timing, the sound characteristics of the hall, etc. and make
 everything work together.  For fun, they may occassionally beat the
 kettle drum or pluck a banjo.  They may even sound pretty good at it
 and enjoy it.

That's my $.0002.

-- 
Seeya,
Paul (who someday might like to be a developer or a banjo plucker :)