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.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

: 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.
--

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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
 ========================================
====================================
===

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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 ha
ve
> 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/"

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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/"

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

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

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