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Advancing from Unix Sysadmin to Programmer
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|
| Martin McMahon 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| Hello there.
I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
I am nearly finished (one year left) a B.Sc. in Information Technology
and have approx. 8 years of solid Unix System Admin experience behind
me. I am also proficient in Shell Programming, PERL and reasonably
proficient in C. I do not have experience in OO programming, but am
practising at home on personal projects.
I would be very grateful if there is someone out there who could
answer this question for me, or who has gone through the same scenario.
My question is:
Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
experience and education?
Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
Finally for anyone who might believe I'm being rash -
I did not suddenly decide this, but have been thinking and mulling
this over in my head for over a year now. A conversation I had with
my boss recently (by far the best and open minded manager I have
ever worked for) is what enabled me to realise I needed to make a
decision.
| |
| Victor Wagner 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
|
: I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
: in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
[skip]
: My question is:
: Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
: means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
: experience and education?
If you feel it nesseccary - you can try. There is even more strange
careers out there.
If you feel that you can do programmer's job and can make your employer
beleive it - you ARE programmer.
--
| |
|
| be aware that it take time to be a good programmer. Also application
development will decrease the next years. Big companies will do offshore for
development, is much cheaper. Personally I don't believe it will work.
So, if you think you can be a programmer go for it.
J
"Martin McMahon" <nospammac@yahoo.com> schreef in bericht
news:8ededcd8.0405200405.41fb32d@posting.google.com...
> Hello there.
>
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>
> I am nearly finished (one year left) a B.Sc. in Information Technology
> and have approx. 8 years of solid Unix System Admin experience behind
> me. I am also proficient in Shell Programming, PERL and reasonably
> proficient in C. I do not have experience in OO programming, but am
> practising at home on personal projects.
>
> I would be very grateful if there is someone out there who could
> answer this question for me, or who has gone through the same scenario.
> My question is:
>
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
>
> Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
> I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
> but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
> mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
> repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
>
> Finally for anyone who might believe I'm being rash -
> I did not suddenly decide this, but have been thinking and mulling
> this over in my head for over a year now. A conversation I had with
> my boss recently (by far the best and open minded manager I have
> ever worked for) is what enabled me to realise I needed to make a
> decision.
| |
| David Schwartz 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| Martin McMahon wrote:
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
[snip]
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
Yes, of course. You're young and fairly experienced, so it should not be
all that difficult.
Unfortunately, though, there's no substitute for experience. You'll have
to make every programming mistake two or three times just like every other
programmer. And other programmers will be familiar with algorithms you've
never even heard of. And you can't read about these things and absorb them,
you have to run into problems and solve them.
You'll be behind the programming experience curve, but maybe you can
make up for that with your system administration skills and experience. One
of my top programmers was afraid to go into one of our DNS servers and make
a simple change (CNAME a failed server over to one that was still
working) -- he was afraid he'd break something.
DS
| |
| hymie! 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| In our last episode, the evil Dr. Lacto had captured our hero,
nospammac@yahoo.com (Martin McMahon), who said:
>Hello there.
>I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
>in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
>means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
>experience and education?
Warning -- root is addictive. It's very humbling when you make the kind
of mistake that, in the past, you could have fixed for yourself, but
now you have to ask somebody else to fix for you.
(When I get the option, I give myself UID 755 just to be safe 
hymie! http://www.smart.net/~hymowitz hymie@lactose.smart.net
========================================
=======================================
| |
| Otto Wyss 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> wrote:
> Martin McMahon wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> Yes, of course. You're young and fairly experienced, so it should not be
> all that difficult.
>
But don't expect to much, dull programming jobs aren't better then sys
admin jobs and good programming jobs are very rare. If you feel you can
do it go for it.
> Unfortunately, though, there's no substitute for experience. You'll have
> to make every programming mistake two or three times just like every other
> programmer. And other programmers will be familiar with algorithms you've
> never even heard of. And you can't read about these things and absorb them,
> you have to run into problems and solve them.
>
While there is no substitute for experience, experience can be aquired
through hard work. IMO the best way to aquire experience without being
fired by the boss is to participate in any OpenSource project. I'd
choose a medium size project since it probably is easier to look
through. The advantage of OpenSource project is your code is viewed by
others and if you make errors they will immediately be critisiced. And
the most important reason if you make valuable contributions any other
error will be forgiven.
So just look for a not to big project which is activly maintained. On
your way you will need help which only active maintainers will provide.
Important, before you request to join the project look through the bug
list and try to to fix any. If you have fixed enough bugs the
maintainers will ask you to join the project anyway since they know
you're a valuable contributor. BTW I know some developers who I'd love
if they would join my projects but they prefer to stay contributor.
Always think it's much better to be a good contributor than a bad member
of a project.
Don't give up when you can't fix a bug, it might be too difficult for
your current knowledge. Just leave it for later and try a simpler one.
Also don't give up when a fix is rejected, maybe a third of mine were
rejected. In case there aren't any bugs (yes that can happen) try to add
a missing feature and make a patch.
IMO the best way to get experience is looking through other's code. And
fixing bug is the best way to do it. And providing fixes makes you a
good contributor which will be rewarded with help, etc. when you need
it. Keep in mind everything what counts in OpenSource is code or
documentation, everything which brings a project ahead.
O. Wyss
--
See a huge pile of work at "http://wyodesktop.sourceforge.net/"
| |
| Rich Teer 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| On Thu, 20 May 2004, Otto Wyss wrote:
> While there is no substitute for experience, experience can be aquired
> through hard work. IMO the best way to aquire experience without being
> fired by the boss is to participate in any OpenSource project. I'd
> choose a medium size project since it probably is easier to look
> through. The advantage of OpenSource project is your code is viewed by
> others and if you make errors they will immediately be critisiced. And
> the most important reason if you make valuable contributions any other
> error will be forgiven.
That is some good advice, but beware the flip-side: not all open source
code necessarily follows good programming techniques and some have
arguably horrible code layout standards.
--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA
President,
Rite Online Inc.
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net
| |
| Otto Wyss 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 20 May 2004, Otto Wyss wrote:
>
>
> That is some good advice, but beware the flip-side: not all open source
> code necessarily follows good programming techniques and some have
> arguably horrible code layout standards.
True! Just because of that I've created wxGuide
("http://wxguide.sourceforge.net/") which might help in improving it.
O. Wyss
--
See a huge pile of work at "http://wyodesktop.sourceforge.net/"
| |
| Frank Cusack 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| On 20 May 2004 05:05:33 -0700 nospammac@yahoo.com (Martin McMahon) wrote:
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>
> I am nearly finished (one year left) a B.Sc. in Information Technology
> and have approx. 8 years of solid Unix System Admin experience behind
> me. I am also proficient in Shell Programming, PERL and reasonably
> proficient in C. I do not have experience in OO programming, but am
> practising at home on personal projects.
>
> I would be very grateful if there is someone out there who could
> answer this question for me, or who has gone through the same scenario.
> My question is:
>
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
Of course it is possible! However the fact that you are asking this
question at all hints that you may not be prepared for it.
There are many types of programming jobs. I can't think of any good
ones in which an Information Technology degree is helpful. Certainly
none where there is any job security. (And I assume you're only
considering unix programming jobs.) Don't get me wrong, you should
definitely complete your degree.
> Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
> I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
> but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
> mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
> repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
True, but there are many mere "mechanics" who build/maintain/extend
systems whose value is far greater than the sum of their parts. What
I really mean to say is, you are being self-limiting. If, as a
sysadmin, you are not "designing" and "extending" (to quote your own
words) systems, well I hate to say it but you are not very far along
in a SA career. Or, you've only worked for crappy companies.
You seem to be of the opinion that system administration is a lesser
role than programmer. I'd disagree; they're different skills. One
does not "advance" from SA into programming.
Experience is king. Given your SA background, you should have a leg
up on someone with similar programming skills (experience). So you
should figure out what kind of programming you'd like to do, and
gain *real* experience doing it--implement something that your
current employer needs. It can be done, quite readily if you put
your mind to it.
/fc
| |
| Måns Rullgård 2004-05-20, 5:37 pm |
| Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> writes:
> On Thu, 20 May 2004, Otto Wyss wrote:
>
>
> That is some good advice, but beware the flip-side: not all open source
> code necessarily follows good programming techniques and some have
> arguably horrible code layout standards.
The same can be said about commercial closed source code. The
difference is only that nobody knows which programs have terrible
code.
--
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se
| |
| Robert Melson 2004-05-20, 8:34 pm |
| On Thursday 20 May 2004 06:05, Martin McMahon wrote:
> Hello there.
>
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>
> I am nearly finished (one year left) a B.Sc. in Information Technology
> and have approx. 8 years of solid Unix System Admin experience behind
> me. I am also proficient in Shell Programming, PERL and reasonably
> proficient in C. I do not have experience in OO programming, but am
> practising at home on personal projects.
>
> I would be very grateful if there is someone out there who could
> answer this question for me, or who has gone through the same scenario.
> My question is:
>
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
>
> Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
> I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
> but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
> mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
> repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
>
> Finally for anyone who might believe I'm being rash -
> I did not suddenly decide this, but have been thinking and mulling
> this over in my head for over a year now. A conversation I had with
> my boss recently (by far the best and open minded manager I have
> ever worked for) is what enabled me to realise I needed to make a
> decision.
I can only speak for myself here, but I made exactly the reverse transition:
from programming to sysadmin, largely because I felt programming was too
narrowly focused and, thereby, too limiting. Granted, you don't
necessarily create the next world-beater application as an admin, but you
have scope for programming, scripting (as distinct from programming),
hardware and software configuration and a host of other tasks and skills
that make _possible_ that world-beater and every other application that
appears.
Yeah, the hours are frequently miserable as an sysadmin, users and managers
often don't understand that you can't just snap your fingers and unscrew
their screw-ups, that regenning a system or replacing a hard-drive
necessarily takes time, that installing and configuring a new package in
the face of poor or non-existent documentation is not a day in the park.
BUT there are equal pressures as a programmer: KLOCS, code reviews and
walkthroughs, unreasonable and unpredictable customer and management
demands for more and newer "features" (what somebody called 'freeping
creaturism') and a host of other negatives.
_Can_ you make the transition at this stage of your career? Absolutely!
Should you? Only you can answer that.
Bob Melson
--
Robert G. Melson Nothing is more terrible than
Rio Grande MicroSolutions ignorance in action.
El Paso, Texas Goethe
melsonr(at)earthlink(dot)net
| |
| Doug Freyburger 2004-05-20, 8:34 pm |
| Martin McMahon wrote:
>
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>
> I am nearly finished (one year left) a B.Sc. in Information Technology
> and have approx. 8 years of solid Unix System Admin experience behind
> me. I am also proficient in Shell Programming, PERL and reasonably
> proficient in C. I do not have experience in OO programming, but am
> practising at home on personal projects.
>
> I would be very grateful if there is someone out there who could
> answer this question for me, or who has gone through the same scenario.
I went the opposite direction, and I considered the move from
developer to sysadmin to be advancing. That's entirely a matter
of personal tastes. Realistically both are engineering professions
and the change from one to the other is lateral.
> My question is:
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
Certainly. Developer and sysadmin both require similar education
and training. They are different in personality not preparation.
> Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
> I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
> but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
> mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
> repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
Senior on the SAGE scale mandates extensive programming experience.
So there are intermediates out there who aren't programmers but
all of the seniors are programmers. No matter how long a
non-coder might have been in the field.
> Finally for anyone who might believe I'm being rash -
> I did not suddenly decide this, but have been thinking and mulling
> this over in my head for over a year now. A conversation I had with
> my boss recently (by far the best and open minded manager I have
> ever worked for) is what enabled me to realise I needed to make a
> decision.
Thought it over, good stuff. For me I eventually found development
dull but here I am a sysadmin 24 years now and it's still not dull.
You have decided to grab the steering wheel of your career. Very
appropriate action to take.
| |
| Russell Shaw 2004-05-22, 10:27 pm |
| Rich Teer wrote:
> On Thu, 20 May 2004, Otto Wyss wrote:
>
>
> That is some good advice, but beware the flip-side: not all open source
> code necessarily follows good programming techniques and some have
> arguably horrible code layout standards.
IMHO, it's better to keep a mundane and easy job that pays the bills and
do challenging and interesting programming hobbies, instead of doing the
interesting and challenging stuff for your day job, unless you already
happen to get into that position. Interesting and challenging work for
your day job gets too much like a hobby and you end up working all hours
for less pay than you should get. If you get really proficient at programming
(such as practicing on open-source projects for a while), then a new job
in the programming area should be much easier.
| |
| Bjorn Borud 2004-05-22, 10:27 pm |
| [Robert Melson <melsonr@earthlink.net>]
|
| I can only speak for myself here, but I made exactly the reverse
| transition: from programming to sysadmin, largely because I felt
| programming was too narrowly focused and, thereby, too limiting.
I don't really understand why system administration and programming
has to be two completely different disciplines. in my experience,
people who can both function as programmers and sysadmins (and are
good at both) are better problem-solvers and are more likely to come
up with solutions when problems arise.
I agree with what was said earlier in the thread, but I would like to
add something: find yourself a suitable Open Source project to work
on in your spare time, but also: find a mentor. having someone who
can give you hints as to which direction to choose, what to read, what
to learn etc. is incredibly helpful. I am not sure how you would go
about finding one though :-).
-Bjørn
| |
| Gary Armstrong 2004-05-22, 10:27 pm |
|
Martin McMahon wrote:
> Hello there.
>
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>
> I am nearly finished (one year left) a B.Sc. in Information Technology
> and have approx. 8 years of solid Unix System Admin experience behind
> me. I am also proficient in Shell Programming, PERL and reasonably
> proficient in C. I do not have experience in OO programming, but am
> practising at home on personal projects.
>
> I would be very grateful if there is someone out there who could
> answer this question for me, or who has gone through the same scenario.
> My question is:
>
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
>
> Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
> I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
> but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
> mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
> repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
>
Uhhmmm, if I had to guess that's what most programmers do. I'd bet there
are more maintaining and adding on, then inventing.
> Finally for anyone who might believe I'm being rash -
> I did not suddenly decide this, but have been thinking and mulling
> this over in my head for over a year now. A conversation I had with
> my boss recently (by far the best and open minded manager I have
> ever worked for) is what enabled me to realise I needed to make a
> decision.
In my opinion, the coding experience isn't the major factor. Gaining the
domain experience is what takes time. Understanding how and what the
program should do is what will make you and your programs good. If you
code with no input to the spec, what fun is that( I think the term is
code pig )?
Just my $.02
Gary
BTW: I do both. I'm the only sysadmin and programmer at my company. The
computing environment and the programs used in production are mine.
Obviously we b small. 8^)
| |
| Martin McMahon 2004-05-22, 10:27 pm |
| Many thanks to all for your advice and insightful comments.
It really does help to get as much advice as possible in
something like this.
Cheers,
Martin.
| |
| Bjorn Reese 2004-05-22, 10:27 pm |
| On Thu, 20 May 2004 05:05:33 -0700, Martin McMahon wrote:
> Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
> I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
> but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
> mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
> repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
You have at least two things going for you:
First, as a sysadmin you have extensive experience in trouble-
shooting. Although the tools may differ from those used in
programming, the underlying principles are more or less the
same. This is an area where most new programmers have absolutely
no skills.
Second, more and more programmers are building systems from
existing (COTS) components, and are mainly writing the glue
between. The ability to get various parts of the system to
act nicely together is basically the same in admin and systems
programming.
What you need to focus on is, as you have already identified
yourself, the design activity. Understanding some OOP language
does not hurt either (any one with work.)
--
mail1dotstofanetdotdk
| |
| Brian Raiter 2004-05-22, 10:27 pm |
| > One of my top programmers was afraid to go into one of our DNS
> servers and make a simple change (CNAME a failed server over to one
> that was still working) -- he was afraid he'd break something.
As would I in that situation. I know enough to know how much I don't know.
b
| |
| Chris Cox 2004-05-24, 2:30 am |
| Martin McMahon wrote:
> Hello there.
>
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>
....
> My question is:
>
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
.....
Well... I don't think there's anything wrong with this. However, I'm a
Programmer (C, C++, LISP, Cobol, Assembler, Pascal, etc) that became a
Systems Administrator. I consider it a promotion. I often times assist
our SW developers with troubleshooting. So either way, I'd recommend
Systems Administration, but there's nothing wrong with knowing how to
program.... and you don't necessarily have to change career paths.
| |
| Dave Kosenko 2004-05-24, 11:31 pm |
| This may be a somewhat contentious position, but...
When looking at the positions that have, to date, been most
likely to be outsourced to places like India, Russia, etc.,
it is the programming jobs that have been high on the list (along
with help desk functions). Sysadmins, on the other hand, are
much harder to locate overseas, especially if the hardware
itself remains local. Even with outsourcing the
location of the hardware to shared facilities, the need for
local SA talent remains. And while a company may even outsource
the SA function, it is likely to a company with a local
presence and local SA staff.
So in this regard, one might consider the SA to have the "safer"
job.
Dave
On Mon, 24 May 2004 00:17:14 -0500, Chris Cox <notccox@notairmail.net>
wrote:
>Martin McMahon wrote:
>...
>....
>
>Well... I don't think there's anything wrong with this. However, I'm a
>Programmer (C, C++, LISP, Cobol, Assembler, Pascal, etc) that became a
>Systems Administrator. I consider it a promotion. I often times assist
>our SW developers with troubleshooting. So either way, I'd recommend
>Systems Administration, but there's nothing wrong with knowing how to
>program.... and you don't necessarily have to change career paths.
| |
| Doug Freyburger 2004-05-25, 4:32 pm |
| Dave Kosenko wrote:
>
> This may be a somewhat contentious position, but...
>
> When looking at the positions that have, to date, been most
> likely to be outsourced to places like India, Russia, etc.,
> it is the programming jobs that have been high on the list (along
> with help desk functions). Sysadmins, on the other hand, are
> much harder to locate overseas, especially if the hardware
> itself remains local. Even with outsourcing the
> location of the hardware to shared facilities, the need for
> local SA talent remains. And while a company may even outsource
> the SA function, it is likely to a company with a local
> presence and local SA staff.
>
> So in this regard, one might consider the SA to have the "safer"
> job.
Every good university has a Computer Science department built to
churn out developers. That means there is an endless supply of
young folks competing for the jobs. SysAdmin is an engineering
profession that has resisted a good CS program in universities.
Too much breadth is needed to be a good SA to pull off a program
that churns out good SAs.
Further, Microsoft has conveniently supplied a path for folks who
want to enter the field the easy way via the MCSA/MCSE/MCDBA
cluster of training programs. These plans attract almost all of
the people who are technicians at heart not engineers at heart.
This means that there is an endless pull of potential competition
away from Unix SA.
So in SA there is a dual dynamic of lack of good university plans
to churn out new folks combined with a competing industry pulling
out the bottom half of the talent pool that want to go into
Windows. Combine this with the need for hands-on access and SA
is indeed safer than developer. Safer doesn't mean switching
either way is a promotion in any objective sense. Folks who WANT
to move one way will automatically consider moving that direction
a promotion. Good for them no matter which direction. Former SAs
make good developers and vice versa.
| |
|
| On 2004-05-21, Bjorn Borud <borud-news@borud.no> wrote:
>
> I don't really understand why system administration and programming
> has to be two completely different disciplines.
The disciplines do overlap but they certainly are of different
content and scope. The PoV from each is different enough to thorougly
flabbergast someone from ``the other side'' when getting hit with it
unprepared. The same is true of management(, WRT probably everything
management deals with and vv.), of course. But I digress.
While learning about both, like learning multiple computer languages,
can be a very good thing, you'll want to split the actual day to day
operation of both fairly strictly. Otherwise you'll get chaos and
confusion, which makes both jobs harder, needlessly so.
--
j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .
| |
| silviu 2004-05-27, 4:36 pm |
| Måns Rullgård <mru@kth.se> wrote in message news:<yw1xlljmbxfj.fsf@ford.guide>...
> Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> writes:
>
>
> The same can be said about commercial closed source code. The
> difference is only that nobody knows which programs have terrible
> code.
I cannot agree with you more on this! I am working as a programmer for
a telecomunication company and I've seen one of the worst C/C++ code
imaginable.
I'll give you an example:
string a;
string b;
[....]
if(strcmp(a.c_str(), b.c_str()))
{
//Do something
}
I started working as a programmer at 39; before I used to work as a
mechanical engineer. But that was in 1998. Nowadays, the programming
jobs are being offshored so I don't see much future in IT :-(
My 2 cents,
Sil
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| Martin McMahon wrote:
> Hello there.
>
> I am a 33 year old Unix System Admin and am currently at a stage
> in my career where I have identified a change is needed in my career.
>
> I am nearly finished (one year left) a B.Sc. in Information Technology
> and have approx. 8 years of solid Unix System Admin experience behind
> me. I am also proficient in Shell Programming, PERL and reasonably
> proficient in C. I do not have experience in OO programming, but am
> practising at home on personal projects.
>
> I would be very grateful if there is someone out there who could
> answer this question for me, or who has gone through the same scenario.
> My question is:
>
> Is it possible at this stage of my life to transfer (by whatever
> means) to a purely programming role, considering my age,
> experience and education?
>
> Any experiences, opinions and criticisms are all appreciated.
> I realise some may say that Unix Sysadmins *are* programmers,
> but I do not believe that to be the case - we are more like
> mechanics who maintain what has been designed and occasionally
> repair or tack on certain additions of our own.
>
> Finally for anyone who might believe I'm being rash -
> I did not suddenly decide this, but have been thinking and mulling
> this over in my head for over a year now. A conversation I had with
> my boss recently (by far the best and open minded manager I have
> ever worked for) is what enabled me to realise I needed to make a
> decision.
Sorry for a belated reply. Please read ESR's "How to become a Hacker"
http://catb.org/~esr/faq/hacker-howto.html
I'm sure with 8 years of sys-admin experience, you must've read it
before. Like ESR says, age is not a problem. A couple of days back,
there was a story in Slashot about a geek's granny who wants to do
something more than just checking emails and playing solitare. You are
33. But, is there any chance for you to make a living as good as the one
you are making now? Please think about it
regards,
GVK
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