[150582] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Programmers with network engineering skills
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jared Newell)
Mon Feb 27 20:26:00 2012
From: Jared Newell <jnewell@equinix.com>
To: Doug Barton <dougb@dougbarton.us>, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:24:54 -0800
In-Reply-To: <4F4C0431.1010308@dougbarton.us>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Doug,
I think the difference is that network engineers typically find themselves =
wanting to learn some form of programming to automate routine tasks while d=
oing their job as a network engineer. They've actually managed to be inter=
ested in programming while pursuing a career in networking out of necessity=
.
On the other hand, I think it's very rare for a hard-core programmer/develo=
per to want to learn more about networking because it typically doesn't com=
e up in their job when coding a professional application / large product wi=
th many moving parts and "more than one person on the team".
I'm sure it can happen either way and has (as many people have posted going=
either direction in this thread), but there needs to be some desire to lea=
rn for the individual. I think you'll find a network engineer desiring to =
improve their programming skills much easier than a developer that wants to=
learn improve their networking skills beyond plugging a router into their =
home network.
-Jared
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Barton [mailto:dougb@dougbarton.us]=20
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 2:31 PM
To: Jay Ashworth
Cc: NANOG
Subject: Re: Programmers with network engineering skills
On 2/27/2012 2:23 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>
>=20
>> I think you're more likely to find a network engineer with (possibly
>> limited) programming skills.
>>
>> That's certainly where I would categorize myself.
>=20
> And you're the first I've seen suggest, or even imply, that going that=20
> direction instead might be more fruitful; seemed to me that the skills=20
> necessary to make a decent network engineer would support learning=20
> programming better than the other way round -- though in fact I=20
> personally did it the other way.
I think it depends on what level of "coding" you're talking about. If you w=
ant someone that can whip up a few scripts to easily manage routine tasks, =
then sure, network guy -> "coder" is usually a safe and easy path.
OTOH, if you're talking professional application developer working on a pro=
ject with more than one moving part, and/or more than one person on the tea=
m, you really need someone who thinks like a developer, and can be trained =
to understand network concepts.
.... and yes, the latter is the path that I've taken, so I have a built-in =
bias.
Doug
--=20
It's always a long day; 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
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