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Sysadmins vs programmers

2007-09-17 00:27:13.156543+02 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

QOTD (note the amusing interchange between Genehack and Medley in the comments...):

The more systems administration tasks I perform, the more I understand why systems administrators tend to hate programmers.

s/programmers/(l)users/ (the "l" is silent...).

[ related topics: Quotes John S Jacobs-Anderson ]

comments in descending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-18 05:01:48.786485+02 by: John Anderson

I actually think it has a lot to do with the number of layers of abstraction that a person can simultaneously deal with. It's not that coders are clueless as much as the stack of abstractions they deal with doesn't extend as high up as the stack of abstractions a sysadmin works with. Conversely, the sysadmin's stack doesn't usually go down as low as the stack of a coder. Net result: sysadmins end up thinking coders have no operational clue; coders end up thinking admins don't appreciate the subtle difficulties of Real Programming. Everybody is right to a certain extent, because the approach they take affects how they pose the problem they're trying to solve.

Of course, this is coming on a Monday night after a relatively trouble-free start to the week. Catch me after I've spent a couple of days cleaning up after some idjit programmers and I might be in such a "you're okay, I'm okay, we're all okay" frame of mind...

#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-18 04:31:37.777782+02 by: Mark A. Hershberger

programmers have no clue.

and I'm slowly becoming one.

I probably didn't have a clue to begin with.

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