Unix administration - Looking for HP-UX support engineer in TEXAS

Author

Looking for HP-UX support engineer in TEXAS

rhosea@sacomputer.com

2005-12-06, 6:03 pm

Support contract in Texas, need engineer with experience. various
platforms. Call 1800-548-2607 770-569-2828 ext 203 Robert

Dave Hinz

2005-12-06, 6:03 pm

On 6 Dec 2005 10:55:16 -0800, rhosea@
> Support contract in Texas,

This isn't a jobs group, this is where techies talk to each other.

Robert Melson

2005-12-06, 6:03 pm

In article <1133895316.165095.103230@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
rhosea@sacomputer.com writes:
> Support contract in Texas, need engineer with experience. various
> platforms. Call 1800-548-2607 770-569-2828 ext 203 Robert
>

As somebody else has pointed out, this is not a jobs group. You might have
better luck - and avoid the stigma of being a usenet spammer - if you were to
post to tx.jobs.offered, dfw.jobs, austin.jobs or one of the many other groups
with "jobs" in the title. As is, you've branded yourself as a spammer and have
reduced the likelihood of finding a viable candidate for what _might_ be a
valid offer - all through failing to do your homework.

Pity.

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

phil-news-nospam@ipal.net

2005-12-12, 6:02 pm

On 6 Dec 2005 19:01:56 GMT Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> wrote:

| On 6 Dec 2005 10:55:16 -0800, rhosea@
|> Support contract in Texas,
|
| This isn't a jobs group, this is where techies talk to each other.

Then we might as well talk to each other.

I always wonder why it is that businesses that use systems like HP/UX
never provider opportunities for someone to get experience with their
particular system (e.g. in this case HP/UX), but then often complain
that it's so hard to find experienced people.

I wonder if this has anything to do with a similar issue where business
people will listen to high priced consultants, but never list to their
own techies in the IT department who may well be saying the very same
thing.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Hinz

2005-12-12, 6:02 pm

On 12 Dec 2005 15:53:56 GMT, phil-news-nospam@ipal.net <phil-news-nospam@ipal.net> wrote:
> On 6 Dec 2005 19:01:56 GMT Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>| On 6 Dec 2005 10:55:16 -0800, rhosea@
>|> Support contract in Texas,
>|
>| This isn't a jobs group, this is where techies talk to each other.
>
> Then we might as well talk to each other.

Fair enough, what's up?

> I always wonder why it is that businesses that use systems like HP/UX
> never provider opportunities for someone to get experience with their
> particular system (e.g. in this case HP/UX), but then often complain
> that it's so hard to find experienced people.

It depends. Last time we hired someone here, we gave serious thought to
hiring a PFY and training them up. But, it was the last thing we wanted
to do, because as usual we were short-staffed and needed talent now, not
two years from now. There's always a risk that the green admin will
bail after a couple of years, too. My thinking is that you pay them
well and they'll stay, but I'm not the guy with the budget numbers to
work out.

I took an HP-UX job a number of years ago, as a sun/linux guy. Made it
clear that I had no direct HP-UX expereince. Wasn't a problem, they
sent me to a 1-week training class (in Dallas, in August. Note to self:
don't ever do that again) called "HP-UX System administration for
experienced system administrators" or something like that. Basically a
"OK, so you know _what_ to do already, here's _how_ to do it in this
particular Unix" class.

> I wonder if this has anything to do with a similar issue where business
> people will listen to high priced consultants, but never list to their
> own techies in the IT department who may well be saying the very same
> thing.

That's just human nature.

Robert Melson

2005-12-12, 6:02 pm

In article <dnk6ek11ufh@news4.newsguy.com>,
phil-news-nospam@ipal.net writes:
> On 6 Dec 2005 19:01:56 GMT Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>| On 6 Dec 2005 10:55:16 -0800, rhosea@
>|> Support contract in Texas,
>|
>| This isn't a jobs group, this is where techies talk to each other.
<snip>
> I wonder if this has anything to do with a similar issue where business
> people will listen to high priced consultants, but never list to their
> own techies in the IT department who may well be saying the very same
> thing.
>
It's all part of the ol' "it can't be good if it's free" syndrome found
commonly among bean-counters and button-sorters. Also applies to open source
software. Remember, the BCs and BSs are the same ones who apply cost
accounting rules to every position but their own, who've throttled corporate
R&D, who're chasing tech jobs off-shore, all in the interest of the quarterly
bottom line and never mind the damage done otherwise.

Bah!

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

Timothy J. Bogart

2005-12-12, 8:50 pm

Dave Hinz wrote:
> On 12 Dec 2005 15:53:56 GMT, phil-news-nospam@ipal.net <phil-news-nospam@ipal.net> wrote:
>
> Fair enough, what's up?
>
>
> It depends. Last time we hired someone here, we gave serious thought to
> hiring a PFY and training them up. But, it was the last thing we wanted
> to do, because as usual we were short-staffed and needed talent now, not
> two years from now. There's always a risk that the green admin will
> bail after a couple of years, too. My thinking is that you pay them
> well and they'll stay, but I'm not the guy with the budget numbers to
> work out.
>

I had to look up PFY. <guffaw>

There is an in-between <see below>

> I took an HP-UX job a number of years ago, as a sun/linux guy. Made it
> clear that I had no direct HP-UX expereince.

So you weren't a PFY, with some experience and could pick up another
flavor in far less than two years.

> Wasn't a problem, they
> sent me to a 1-week training class (in Dallas, in August. Note to self:
> don't ever do that again) called "HP-UX System administration for
> experienced system administrators" or something like that. Basically a
> "OK, so you know _what_ to do already, here's _how_ to do it in this
> particular Unix" class.
>

Ha! 13 or 14 years in Houston made Dallas in August look like a vacation
resort. 8-)

I remember having a developer who had moved on to another venue call me
up and ask me to apply as a sysadmin in her new world - seems she
remembered that the machines magically became stable after I took over
as admin on the project we shared and there was a need for the same
thing to happen in her new venue. It was heavy HP and at the time I had
never touched HP. Several PC *nix, AIX, and a little SUN, but no HP.
Well, that capped it for them and they said 'no thanks'.

What is funny is that a year later, for another part of the same
company, I was interviewing over the phone and when I mentioned my first
real UNIX box was an honest-to-goodness 3B2 - there was a slight pause
and "If you learned on a 3B2 you can handle any machine we have - when
can you start". Within 6 months I was asked to deal with some
production HP machines (I was in development - not the datacenter)
simply because I could understand the problem and get the job done -
which ultimately entailed going to their boss and explaining the problem
and lack of solution I was running into. Of course, the folks were
told to get it done, and fast (it really was becoming a time critical
issue).

The punch line? Some of the folks in the team interview I went thru who
nixed me due to no HP experience - you guessed it - were the
unresponsive folks whose boss I had to go to.

>
> That's just human nature.
>

True. Lending a helping hand and murder are both historically common
traits in humans too, but hopefully we know which ones we wish to see
reinforced, eh?

Cheers.

Dave Hinz

2005-12-13, 5:59 pm

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:02:25 -0700, Timothy J. Bogart <tbogart@frii.net> wrote:
> Dave Hinz wrote:

[vbcol=seagreen]
> I had to look up PFY. <guffaw>

Meant in a non-demeaning way, of course, in this context. We've all
been there/done that, after all. Guy needs a good mentor.

> There is an in-between <see below>

You bet.

[vbcol=seagreen]
> So you weren't a PFY, with some experience and could pick up another
> flavor in far less than two years.

Sure. It's just another flavor of Unix, right? You already know what
to do, you just need the specifics on _how_ to do it on that flavor.
It's just another SVR4 Unix, after all.

[vbcol=seagreen]
> Ha! 13 or 14 years in Houston made Dallas in August look like a vacation
> resort. 8-)

I'm a German/Norwegian/Danish-blooded guy from Wisconsin. 100+ at 90%
humidity sucks no matter where you are, with all that northern european
blood.

> I remember having a developer who had moved on to another venue call me
> up and ask me to apply as a sysadmin in her new world - seems she
> remembered that the machines magically became stable after I took over
> as admin on the project we shared and there was a need for the same
> thing to happen in her new venue.

Good reputation to have. Easier if you're following someone who was
incompetant and left lots of easy targets to fix.

> It was heavy HP and at the time I had
> never touched HP. Several PC *nix, AIX, and a little SUN, but no HP.
> Well, that capped it for them and they said 'no thanks'.

Their loss. I'm guessing it was an HR-type person, not a techie-type
person, who gave you the "go away"?

> What is funny is that a year later, for another part of the same
> company, I was interviewing over the phone and when I mentioned my first
> real UNIX box was an honest-to-goodness 3B2 - there was a slight pause
> and "If you learned on a 3B2 you can handle any machine we have - when
> can you start".

There ya go. One of my favorite questions to ask someone in an
interview is: "Tell me about your home network." Doesn't matter what
they have, what matters is how they answer, if that makes any sense.
I've got a mess of dissimilar systems talking and playing nice together
- Samba running over here, that one running a print server, file server
on the raid array over there, a couple SGIs running as app servers,
even a windows VMWare instance running on a linux box (which I can
display to the Mac on my desk). Doesn't hurt to show some sort of
interesting setup as an example of "I can make these things work
together".

> Within 6 months I was asked to deal with some
> production HP machines

That'll happen when you're doing good work...

> The punch line? Some of the folks in the team interview I went thru who
> nixed me due to no HP experience - you guessed it - were the
> unresponsive folks whose boss I had to go to.

Heh. It's nice when a plan comes together.

Dave

Timothy J. Bogart

2005-12-13, 5:59 pm

Dave Hinz wrote:
<snip>
>
> I'm a German/Norwegian/Danish-blooded guy from Wisconsin. 100+ at 90%
> humidity sucks no matter where you are, with all that northern european
> blood.

Couldn't resist - I am half Dutch/Irish/Eurosomthing and half Lebonese
who hails from the Twin Cities. So, you see, the confusion is built in!

See, it is all in appreciating the difference between 99% humidity and
90% humidity. I kid you not, you can go jogging and be soaked on your
front - dry on your back - because you are smacking into the moisture in
the air. Nope. Don't miss it one bit.
>
<snip>
> Good reputation to have. Easier if you're following someone who was
> incompetant and left lots of easy targets to fix.

Should have said right off that I don't claim to be a guru. Absolutely
chaulk up my reputation to the poor skills of others. Seems though,
every place I have stepped into I have been able to improve things.

Still, I have had occasion to work with serious wizzards. They are scary.

>
<snip>
>
> There ya go. One of my favorite questions to ask someone in an
> interview is: "Tell me about your home network." Doesn't matter what
> they have, what matters is how they answer, if that makes any sense.
> I've got a mess of dissimilar systems talking and playing nice together
> - Samba running over here, that one running a print server, file server
> on the raid array over there, a couple SGIs running as app servers,
> even a windows VMWare instance running on a linux box (which I can
> display to the Mac on my desk). Doesn't hurt to show some sort of
> interesting setup as an example of "I can make these things work
> together".

Aside from the friendly banter, this is a really good point to make in a
thread about *nix employment. Caught more than one person like a deer
in headlights when we would ask about *nix/Linux experience and the
person would say 'I have really wanted to play with Linux' and I would
ask 'what stopped you?'. With Linux and BSD variants so available for
the common wintel platform and used *nix workstations for a couple of
hundred bucks on Ebay - anyone with any serious interest can have access
to more than one flavor. Very good indicator of the interest level of
the applicant.

And for some final friendly banter - I was pretty amazed when I
discovered that the rather pricey cisco equipment at work required one
to always hand set ports with AIX boxes on them to 100/full duplex since
they would never auto negotiate correctly - and the no name cheapo
switch at home would auto negotiate just fine every time.

8-)

Cheers

Dave Hinz

2005-12-13, 5:59 pm

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:39:43 -0700, Timothy J. Bogart <tbogart@frii.net> wrote:
> Dave Hinz wrote:

[vbcol=seagreen]
> Couldn't resist - I am half Dutch/Irish/Eurosomthing and half Lebonese
> who hails from the Twin Cities. So, you see, the confusion is built in!

I can see how that could get culturally confusing ;)

> See, it is all in appreciating the difference between 99% humidity and
> 90% humidity. I kid you not, you can go jogging and be soaked on your
> front - dry on your back - because you are smacking into the moisture in
> the air. Nope. Don't miss it one bit.

Ooof.

[vbcol=seagreen]
> Should have said right off that I don't claim to be a guru.

Good. "Guru" isn't a title that should ever be claimed; it's assigned.
"Wizard", maybe. Guru? If someone claims to be one, run away.

> Absolutely
> chaulk up my reputation to the poor skills of others. Seems though,
> every place I have stepped into I have been able to improve things.

There's always easy targets. The trick, I think, is to fix those first,
build up reputational points (whatever you want to call it), and then
use that leverage to get more risky things implemented. "Hey, have I
steered you wrong yet?" kind of thing. Gotta have a track record on
which to make that sort of statement.

> Still, I have had occasion to work with serious wizzards. They are scary.

Yeah, I know a couple guys that I wish I could work with again. Lately
it's been more being the mentor than being mentored, which is fine in
it's own way. I tend to ask a lot of clarifying questions, get people
focused on what they want to do, rather than how to do something.
Strategy first, _then_ tactics.

[vbcol=seagreen]
> Aside from the friendly banter, this is a really good point to make in a
> thread about *nix employment.

Well, yeah. Their reaction also tells you a lot about the personality
and how they can respond to a social situation in that work context.
It's not a typical interview question, I don't think, so it's no the
cliche' "what are your strengths/weaknesses" thing that everyone seems
to have a pat answer figured out for.

> Caught more than one person like a deer
> in headlights when we would ask about *nix/Linux experience and the
> person would say 'I have really wanted to play with Linux' and I would
> ask 'what stopped you?'.

Nice.

> With Linux and BSD variants so available for
> the common wintel platform and used *nix workstations for a couple of
> hundred bucks on Ebay - anyone with any serious interest can have access
> to more than one flavor. Very good indicator of the interest level of
> the applicant.

Absolutely. And don't try to bluff, because I don't ask questions I
don't know the answers to already...

> And for some final friendly banter - I was pretty amazed when I
> discovered that the rather pricey cisco equipment at work required one
> to always hand set ports with AIX boxes on them to 100/full duplex since
> they would never auto negotiate correctly -

Yeah, well, autonegotiation of speed and duplex has always sucked, on
all hardware. Sun, HP-UX, SGI, Cisco, Alcatel - doesn't matter. Want
it pegged to 100/Full? Do it by hand, it's the only way to be sure.
Easy enough to recognize when it goes wrong, but still damned annoying
to get bit by it yet again.

> and the no name cheapo
> switch at home would auto negotiate just fine every time.

Heh. Then again, it doesn't have 100 servers and 400 clients hanging
off of it...

Interviewing is interesting -from both sides of the discussion.

Dave Hinz

Robert Melson

2005-12-13, 5:59 pm

In article <408u6bF18tg8mU5@individual.net>,
Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> writes:
<snip>>
> Good. "Guru" isn't a title that should ever be claimed; it's assigned.
> "Wizard", maybe. Guru? If someone claims to be one, run away.
>
Right on. There's serious competence, then there's the guy who claims to be
a guru. Usually can't pour water out of a boot with the instructions on the
heel.
<snip>
The kind you lock in the basement and feed meat on alternate Tuesdays, right?[vbcol=seagreen]
>
<snip>
My favorite filter-type question is: given a shell variable FOO=BAR, what is
the effect of (1) echo "$FOO", (2) echo '$FOO", echo `$FOO`, echo $FOO.
Simple, but amazingly effective in determining if the candidate has even the
beginning of a clue about the shell and, more particularly, the system in
general.[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Dave Hinz
>

Hi, Dave.

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

phil-news-nospam@ipal.net

2005-12-14, 5:57 pm

On 12 Dec 2005 16:21:57 GMT Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> wrote:

| It depends. Last time we hired someone here, we gave serious thought to
| hiring a PFY and training them up. But, it was the last thing we wanted
| to do, because as usual we were short-staffed and needed talent now, not
| two years from now. There's always a risk that the green admin will
| bail after a couple of years, too. My thinking is that you pay them
| well and they'll stay, but I'm not the guy with the budget numbers to
| work out.

So it would seem that as employers of a particular skill set find
themselves both short staffed _and_ in immediate need, this will
end up making the former, and subsequently the latter, a more common
occurrence.

| I took an HP-UX job a number of years ago, as a sun/linux guy. Made it
| clear that I had no direct HP-UX expereince. Wasn't a problem, they
| sent me to a 1-week training class (in Dallas, in August. Note to self:
| don't ever do that again) called "HP-UX System administration for
| experienced system administrators" or something like that. Basically a
| "OK, so you know _what_ to do already, here's _how_ to do it in this
| particular Unix" class.

And ironically, the posting that started this was for a job there. I take
it you didn't have any interest.

|> I wonder if this has anything to do with a similar issue where business
|> people will listen to high priced consultants, but never list to their
|> own techies in the IT department who may well be saying the very same
|> thing.
|
| That's just human nature.

Of certain subclasses of human ... err ... maybe type-A personalities?
Hmmm. Maybe if the staff regularly take the CEO out to lunch? But that
could never happen (though I've had reverse happen a couple times in better
places).

And I just read a story that even at a place like Google, which you'd
think would be a geek paradise, had a similar issue.

Maybe it's the beard.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Hinz

2005-12-14, 5:57 pm

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 22:55:30 GMT, Robert Melson <melsonr@aragorn.rgmhome.net> wrote:
> In article <408u6bF18tg8mU5@individual.net>,
> Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> writes:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> My favorite filter-type question is: given a shell variable FOO=BAR, what is
> the effect of (1) echo "$FOO",

Which shell? This assumes you set it properly, and that "BAR" is a
literal, yes?

> (2) echo '$FOO",

Mixed punctuation, I'd assume a null response.

> echo `$FOO`,

command (whatever FOO literally is) not found

> echo $FOO.

whatever FOO literally is set to

> Simple, but amazingly effective in determining if the candidate has even the
> beginning of a clue about the shell and, more particularly, the system in
> general.

Not real sure how the first would fail, but it'd fail.

> Hi, Dave.

Yeah, I still haven't looked at your site. Some interesting
developments, er, developing in RL right now. As in good changes afoot
kind of changes. Details soon, I hope ;)

Dave

Dave Hinz

2005-12-14, 5:57 pm

On 14 Dec 2005 16:02:32 GMT, phil-news-nospam@ipal.net <phil-news-nospam@ipal.net> wrote:
> On 12 Dec 2005 16:21:57 GMT Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>| It depends. Last time we hired someone here, we gave serious thought to
>| hiring a PFY and training them up. But, it was the last thing we wanted
>| to do, because as usual we were short-staffed and needed talent now, not
>| two years from now.

> So it would seem that as employers of a particular skill set find
> themselves both short staffed _and_ in immediate need, this will
> end up making the former, and subsequently the latter, a more common
> occurrence.

Right. It's a situation of "hope for what we want; settle for what we
get". We've had great luck with one guy straight out of college. I'd
also be surprised if he's still here 5 years from now. Great guy, but
how many people stay with the first job they ever take, these days, in
IT?

>| I took an HP-UX job a number of years ago, as a sun/linux guy. Made it
>| clear that I had no direct HP-UX expereince. Wasn't a problem, they
>| sent me to a 1-week training class (in Dallas, in August. Note to self:
>| don't ever do that again) called "HP-UX System administration for
>| experienced system administrators" or something like that. Basically a
>| "OK, so you know _what_ to do already, here's _how_ to do it in this
>| particular Unix" class.

> And ironically, the posting that started this was for a job there. I take
> it you didn't have any interest.

No, the posting that started this was from a spammer. I'll never deal
with a spammer, period. The HP-UX job was years ago in a different
department at my (then) current employer.

>| That's just human nature.

> Of certain subclasses of human ... err ... maybe type-A personalities?

Hard to say, the label really doesn't matter. It just is.

> And I just read a story that even at a place like Google, which you'd
> think would be a geek paradise, had a similar issue.

> Maybe it's the beard.

Oh, by all means, if you don't have one, you should grow one. No doubt
about that. Unless you're a girl-type IT person, in which case it might
be more distracting than you'd want.

Dave "sillier than usual today, sorry about that, a little" Hinz

Robert Melson

2005-12-14, 5:57 pm

In article <40b2iuF196utqU3@individual.net>,
Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> writes:
> On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 22:55:30 GMT, Robert Melson <melsonr@aragorn.rgmhome.net> wrote:
<snip>[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Which shell? This assumes you set it properly, and that "BAR" is a
> literal, yes?
Given the assignment, the shell is implicit: either Bourne or Ksh, tho' I seem
to recall that bash has similar notation. BAR can be anything you want. The
point of the exercise is to determine what the effect of the different types of
quotes is.
>
Oops! should be "$FOO".[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Mixed punctuation, I'd assume a null response.
>
>
> command (whatever FOO literally is) not found
>
>
> whatever FOO literally is set to
>
<snip>
> Not real sure how the first would fail, but it'd fail.
>
>
> Yeah, I still haven't looked at your site. Some interesting
> developments, er, developing in RL right now. As in good changes afoot
> kind of changes. Details soon, I hope ;)

The "Hi" was merely that, no implied criticism. I'll be interested to hear
what you are and have been up to.
>
> Dave
>
In order, (1) echo "$FOO" gives BAR; (2) echo '$FOO' gives $FOO;
(3) echo `$FOO` gives "FOO: not found"; (4) echo $FOO gives BAR. You have
to ask yourself what the effect of double quotes, single quotes, "back tics"
and no quotes is under your shell of preference. BTW, it could just as easily
have been "set FOO BAR" under csh and _its_ derivatives.

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

Robert Melson

2005-12-14, 5:57 pm

In article <OUYnf.2778$n1.1318@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
melsonr@aragorn.rgmhome.net (Robert Melson) writes:
<major snippage>

'Nother option is to do something like BAR="ls -l";FOO=BAR, followed by the
4 questions. You'd be surprised how few people get any right, much less all 4.
And these are supposedly experienced professionals I'm speaking of.

Sigh.

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

Timothy J. Bogart

2005-12-14, 5:57 pm

Robert Melson wrote:
> In article <408u6bF18tg8mU5@individual.net>,
> Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> writes:
<snip> Usually can't pour water out of a boot with the instructions on the
> heel.

Always loved that one - been ages since I heard it.

> <snip>
> The kind you lock in the basement and feed meat on alternate Tuesdays, right?

Umm, well, I have never had to go that far - yet. 8-)

Still, probably the best all around progrmmer AND admin I ever worked
with was my first real mentor. Definately a one-in-a-million fellow.

Hard of hearing, his voice was overly loud even in normal conversation.
That was a small percentage of the time, as he was usually screaming
at or about someone/something. A lifetime NRA member, he carried a
loaded 9mm to work in his briefcase (obviously this was decades ago!).

Now, I have always been amazed at the number of folks who think I am a
hard XXX since I have never threatened to shoot anyone, let alone with a
loaded weapon within reach to back it up.

Just a matter of perspective I guess. 8-)

> <snip>
> My favorite filter-type question is: given a shell variable FOO=BAR, what is
> the effect of (1) echo "$FOO", (2) echo '$FOO", echo `$FOO`, echo $FOO.
> Simple, but amazingly effective in determining if the candidate has even the
> beginning of a clue about the shell and, more particularly, the system in
> general.

Ack. I am afraid we will diverge here. I have found that people can
know all sorts of wonderfull programming trivia and not have the
slightest clue how the system actually works. In fact, I would say that
less that 5% of people who program really understand the machine from a
system point of view. But I find that nearly 100% of folks who
understand the system can hack out a usefull shell script when they have
to - or perhaps even do so effortlessly.

I guess I would lean more to something like 'what 3 things do you look
at when you run into a performance issue' and maybe forgive them if they
count network I/O as seperate from disk I/O (while gently correcting them).

Perhaps give extra points for 'it usually is unrealistic expectations
rather than a system issue, so look there first'. <grin>

Robert Melson

2005-12-14, 8:50 pm

In article <11q171f2j3evc89@corp.supernews.com>,
"Timothy J. Bogart" <tbogart@frii.net> writes:
<snip>
>
> Ack. I am afraid we will diverge here. I have found that people can
> know all sorts of wonderfull programming trivia and not have the
> slightest clue how the system actually works. In fact, I would say that
> less that 5% of people who program really understand the machine from a
> system point of view. But I find that nearly 100% of folks who
> understand the system can hack out a usefull shell script when they have
> to - or perhaps even do so effortlessly.
>
> I guess I would lean more to something like 'what 3 things do you look
> at when you run into a performance issue' and maybe forgive them if they
> count network I/O as seperate from disk I/O (while gently correcting them).
>
> Perhaps give extra points for 'it usually is unrealistic expectations
> rather than a system issue, so look there first'. <grin>

Well, as I said, it's a filter - helps determine the people you want to spend
time with. In my experience, folks who don't have a handle on their shell
are generally clueless when it comes to the larger system. One of my
particular prejudices is that I believe in building tools to do the repetitive
- and boring - jobs and that those tools often require knowledge of the several
flavors of shell and/or perl. Knowledge of shell/perl scripting is no
substitute for in depth system know-how, I agree, but it certainly doesn't hurt
and frequently helps immensely.

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

DMFH

2005-12-15, 7:49 am

> And for some final friendly banter - I was pretty amazed when I
> discovered that the rather pricey cisco equipment at work required one
> to always hand set ports with AIX boxes on them to 100/full duplex since
> they would never auto negotiate correctly - and the no name cheapo
> switch at home would auto negotiate just fine every time.

This quip sort of prompted me to chime in - I'm a network geek by trade, but I
pretend to be a serious SA at home, giving me enough knowledge to bridge the
gap between SA's and networking folk and help out. I once too was mystified by
the auto-negotiate problem years ago, and after a rash of port speed/duplex
mismatches on cisco kit, it was off to the lab to get to the bottom of it
(unfortunately sans frosty beverage!) - it was quite interesting. I don't
profess this was 100% correct, heck, I could be wrong, but it explained a
great many things with auto-negotiation failures.

I wound up testing most of Sun's NIC's - HME's, etc. and then PC NIC's,
which are notorious for not being quite standard. The end result of the
testing was Sun was spot-on most of the time, PC NIC's, really not. Then off
to the why. Way Back When (tm), there were two companies, I believe National
Semiconductor & AMD, that made chipsets for 100Mbps Ethernet. What gets
auto-negotiate done is the link pulse (carrier high) between the NIC and the
switch - inside that link pulse is encoded the auto-negotiate messages in a
few bits, and through a logic tree, both ends determine what they should be.
I found AMD's link pulse pattern was different from NS's after looking at the
chips' engineering reference sheets - the story goes on to conclude that all
100Mbps Ethernet chipsets were derived from those first chipsets from either
company, and hence, never the standards should meet. Depending on the
manufacturer, the Ethernet switch will default to a certain setting when
auto-negotiate doesn't function properly.

For production servers, I generally prefer to insist on a manual setting. This
can be quite a PITA if a large amount of servers need deploying, but the
mismatches are a real performance drain since the problem only shows up once
the interfaces gets busy over a few megabits per second.

-DMFH

PS - It's been quite a while since I've posted on Usenet - is it correct form
to delete most of the prior posting when following-up a post, or is it
considered more polite to leave the entire thread in the message and comment
in-line? Apologies in advance if I <---cut here---> too much text! ;) Happy
Holidays!

Robert Melson

2005-12-15, 6:05 pm

In article <slrndq2bqk.2sk.dmfh@llanfaethlu.dmfh.cx>,
DMFH <dmfh@n0spam.dmfh.cx.spamn0t> writes:
<snip>
> -DMFH
>
> PS - It's been quite a while since I've posted on Usenet - is it correct form
> to delete most of the prior posting when following-up a post, or is it
> considered more polite to leave the entire thread in the message and comment
> in-line? Apologies in advance if I <---cut here---> too much text! ;) Happy
> Holidays!

Keep enough to retain context for your reply, can whatever else you think
appropriate.

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

phil-news-nospam@ipal.net

2005-12-15, 6:05 pm

On 14 Dec 2005 17:23:44 GMT Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> wrote:
| On 14 Dec 2005 16:02:32 GMT, phil-news-nospam@ipal.net <phil-news-nospam@ipal.net> wrote:
|> On 12 Dec 2005 16:21:57 GMT Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@spamcop.net> wrote:
|>
|>| It depends. Last time we hired someone here, we gave serious thought to
|>| hiring a PFY and training them up. But, it was the last thing we wanted
|>| to do, because as usual we were short-staffed and needed talent now, not
|>| two years from now.
|
|> So it would seem that as employers of a particular skill set find
|> themselves both short staffed _and_ in immediate need, this will
|> end up making the former, and subsequently the latter, a more common
|> occurrence.
|
| Right. It's a situation of "hope for what we want; settle for what we
| get". We've had great luck with one guy straight out of college. I'd
| also be surprised if he's still here 5 years from now. Great guy, but
| how many people stay with the first job they ever take, these days, in
| IT?

Very few. But I've met a few that have and at least a couple still are
a decade after that.

|>| I took an HP-UX job a number of years ago, as a sun/linux guy. Made it
|>| clear that I had no direct HP-UX expereince. Wasn't a problem, they
|>| sent me to a 1-week training class (in Dallas, in August. Note to self:
|>| don't ever do that again) called "HP-UX System administration for
|>| experienced system administrators" or something like that. Basically a
|>| "OK, so you know _what_ to do already, here's _how_ to do it in this
|>| particular Unix" class.
|
|> And ironically, the posting that started this was for a job there. I take
|> it you didn't have any interest.
|
| No, the posting that started this was from a spammer. I'll never deal
| with a spammer, period. The HP-UX job was years ago in a different
| department at my (then) current employer.

I meant "there" as in DFW.

|> Maybe it's the beard.
|
| Oh, by all means, if you don't have one, you should grow one. No doubt
| about that. Unless you're a girl-type IT person, in which case it might
| be more distracting than you'd want.

Already have one.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2005-12-17, 5:55 pm

In article <OUYnf.2778$n1.1318@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
Robert Melson <melsonr@earthlink.net> wrote:
>In order, (1) echo "$FOO" gives BAR; (2) echo '$FOO' gives $FOO;
>(3) echo `$FOO` gives "FOO: not found";
you're fired. :-)

Johann
>(4) echo $FOO gives BAR. You have
>to ask yourself what the effect of double quotes, single quotes, "back tics"
>and no quotes is under your shell of preference. BTW, it could just as easily
>have been "set FOO BAR" under csh and _its_ derivatives.
>
>Bob Melson
>
--
Return address invalid due to spam.

Robert Melson

2005-12-17, 5:56 pm

In article <J9mdncc-vaRR1jnenZ2dnUVZ_sGdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
newsuser@bonzaisurf.net () writes:
> In article <OUYnf.2778$n1.1318@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> Robert Melson <melsonr@earthlink.net> wrote:
> you're fired. :-)

And why might that be? Have you run them? I did, just to be sure, and the
output is as indicated.

No point in beating this horse any more - it's long dead and starting to
smell, but ....

sh
$ foo=bar
$ echo $foo
bar
$ echo "$foo"
bar
$ echo '$foo'
$foo
$ echo `$foo`
bar: not found[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Johann

<snippage>

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

Adam Price

2005-12-18, 7:48 am

On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 20:25:27 GMT, Robert Melson wrote:

> In article <J9mdncc-vaRR1jnenZ2dnUVZ_sGdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
> newsuser@bonzaisurf.net () writes:
>
> And why might that be? Have you run them? I did, just to be sure, and the
> output is as indicated.

FOO != BAR

>
> No point in beating this horse any more - it's long dead and starting to
> smell, but ....
>
> sh
> $ foo=bar
> $ echo $foo
> bar
> $ echo "$foo"
> bar
> $ echo '$foo'
> $foo
> $ echo `$foo`
> bar: not found
Note how this is different to

'FOO: not found'
Which was the predicted output.

Adam

Robert Melson

2005-12-18, 5:57 pm

In article <xpsddixleffp.dlg@pappnase.co.uk>,
Adam Price <adam+usenet@pappnase.co.uk> writes:
> On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 20:25:27 GMT, Robert Melson wrote:
>
>
> FOO != BAR
>
> Note how this is different to
>
> 'FOO: not found'
> Which was the predicted output.
>
> Adam

Yeah. Shoulda checked for typo. Point is/was that it's a simple "test" that
can easily be used as a screener.

Bob

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

phil-news-nospam@ipal.net

2005-12-18, 5:57 pm

Adam Price

2005-12-19, 2:49 am

Robert Melson

2005-12-19, 6:02 pm

In article <1xbl0vn0tqk7x.dlg@pappnase.co.uk>,
Adam Price <adam+usenet@pappnase.co.uk> writes:
> On 18 Dec 2005 17:26:46 GMT, phil-news-nospam@ipal.net wrote:
>
> I don't know,I didn't make the prodiction,
> See where Robert Melson wrote:-
> (3) echo `$FOO` gives "FOO: not found";
> (It's in MID <OUYnf.2778$n1.1318@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net> if you
> want to find it on your own).
> Adam

Adam,

It was a typo on my part, which I've already acknowledged. It _should_ have
read `echo $FOO` results in BAR: not found. Never make a mistake yourself?

Bob Melson

--
Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas
-----
"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." Thomas Reed
-----

Adam Price

2005-12-20, 8:04 am

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 16:31:54 GMT, Robert Melson wrote:

> In article <1xbl0vn0tqk7x.dlg@pappnase.co.uk>,
> Adam Price <adam+usenet@pappnase.co.uk> writes:
>
> Adam,
>
> It was a typo on my part, which I've already acknowledged. It _should_ have
> read `echo $FOO` results in BAR: not found. Never make a mistake yourself?
>
> Bob Melson

Bob,
Sorry my argument wasn't with you and I didn't mean to give that
impression, you acknowleged your typo straight-away and things would have
moved on. My reply was really only to the question 'Why would that be the
predicted output?" which implied somehow that the mistake was mine.
I make plenty of my own (most recently "prodiction" when I meant
"prediction". It was only meant to be some light ribbing to relax and have
a bit of fun.
Now as somone else said time to stop, this thread is as off-topic as it
gets with the subject line it has and anything that encourages the
job-spammers is a bad thing.
Sorry if I offended anyone.
I won't be commenting in this thread again.
Adam