[Off-topic] Sysadmins (was Re: can some one help a newbie?)

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <935273107snz at vision25.demon.co.uk>,
Phil Hunt <philh at vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <7pmv4j$gtt at dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com>
>           aahz at netcom.com "Aahz Maruch" writes:
>> In article <935227166snz at vision25.demon.co.uk>,
>> Phil Hunt <philh at vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>In article <7pkke6$lut at dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>
>>>           aahz at netcom.com "Aahz Maruch" writes:
>>>>
>>>> Overall, if your background is as a sysadmin using shell scripts, grep,
>>>> awk, sed, and so on, you'll find Perl a bit easier.
>>>
>>>I've used all these, and find Python easier than Perl. Perl would
>>>probably be easier than Python for 1-liners, if I could remember
>>>the syntax.
>> 
>> Note that I'm specifically assuming a sysadmin with little actual
>> programming experience.
>
>The idea that a company would employ someone, who can't really code,
>as a sysadmin is IMO frightening. Unless they don't care whether
>their computer system works, of course.

I guess I'm missing something, because the prospect doesn't "frighten"
me.  There are a lot of activities for which a little bit of programming
goes a long way, but I've seen a lot of people capable of doing that who
really are not programmers in any sense of the word that you and I would
use.  That's precisely a large part of why Perl has been so successful;
it lends itself readily to the kind of "cookbook" programming that
sysadmins do.
--
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