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

[Christophe Kalt <sage-members@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 30, Shaun T. Erickson wrote:
| Christophe Kalt wrote:
| >
| >Sure, [sysadmins who aren't programmers] can be good, but in my opinion & 
| >experience,
| >they'll never be as good as sysadmins who are also good
| >programmers.
| >
| >That's why i don't even bother interviewing candidates who
| >can't program at all.
[...]
| I always thought being able to solve the problem was of paramount 
| import. If I don't have the personal skill to solve it, but know how to 
| find the solution, isn't that what counts most?

Not really.
Sure, it's useful (and in some cases enough) but generally if
you don't learn anything in the process it means you're just
applying a recipe without understanding things.

|                                                 And if I am presented 
| with a job task that can't be done with the skills I have, and requires 
| me to add a skill, and I am willing to develop it (like learning perl 
| because I was handed or inherited some perl scripts that I'm now to be 
| responsible for), isn't that what matters most? We can't all know 
| everything and there isn't time to learn everything, but we can add to 
| our skills as the need arises, no?

We work in a fairly rapidly evolving field, the ability to
keep learning is obviously important, but it's just one of
many basic/essential requirements.  (There's also a
difference between learned/earned experience and core
skills.)

I've long strongly believed that programming skills are
also essential for sysadmins, so i always look for that in
candidates, especially since properly developping such skills
on the job is non-trivial.

|                                    Isn't that the kind of person you
| want to work for you?

i like to hire people who can eventually do my job.  For
senior hires, this pretty much means "right away", while for
more junior hires it's more a question of judging potential
and ability to realize such potential.