nanog mailing list archives
RE: Programmers with network engineering skills
From: "Justin M. Streiner" <streiner () cluebyfour org>
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2012 11:09:15 -0500 (EST)
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012, Jared Newell wrote:
I think the difference is that network engineers typically find themselves wanting to learn some form of programming to automate routine tasks while doing their job as a network engineer. They've actually managed to be interested in programming while pursuing a career in networking out of necessity.
That pretty much the path that I took. I found a lot of value in automating tasks, which eventually grew into a configuration backup system that was used company-wide. I could have deployed one of several configuration management systems, but I wanted to build one from the ground up. While the code I wrote wasn't exactly pretty, it worked. No doubt there was a lot of room to do it better, and one of my long-term goals was to re-write the whole thing in a language that was better suited to the task at hand, I ended up moving on to a new gig before that came to pass.
I still have the code (previous employer was OK with that), and I still tinker with it from time to time. It taught me a lot more about some of the nuts-and-bolts aspects of both coding and SNMP that I ever would have encountered, had I not written that system.
I think I would also add to the wish list for "the perfect candidate" is some database experience. Sometimes data is much easier to work with in the SQL world than 'live'.
jms
Current thread:
- Re: Programmers with network engineering skills, (continued)
- Re: Programmers with network engineering skills Steve Bertrand (Mar 13)
- Re: Programmers with network engineering skills Jeroen van Aart (Mar 16)
- Re: Programmers with network engineering skills Keegan Holley (Mar 12)
- Re: Programmers with network engineering skills Paul Graydon (Mar 12)
- Re: Programmers with network engineering skills Owen DeLong (Mar 12)
- Re: Programmers with network engineering skills Carlos Martinez-Cagnazzo (Mar 13)
- Email Integration / Account Migration Mike Rae (Mar 13)
- Re: Email Integration / Account Migration Mike Lyon (Mar 13)
- Re: Email Integration / Account Migration Anurag Bhatia (Mar 13)
- Re: Email Integration / Account Migration Thomas King (Mar 14)