I think it's more accurate to say that good developers need to have some level of systems expertise which probably means OS & networking fundamentals + practical Linux experience. This is because you need to have some understanding of how your program will execute on (or across) machine(s), and some know-how to get your program up and running on a real machine available to users on a real network. Whether you need to be an expert in the latest best practices for managing a fleet of servers compliant with whatever regulations, that's more for the sys admin (though it never hurts to learn more, there's just so many things we developers could spend our time learning).
Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
201–210 of 424 posts
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#202This might be controversial, but I don't think you get to be a half decent developer without being a reasonable sysadmin. Maybe my experience is unusual, but I've never worked anywhere that the sysadmins knew more than the developers about how best to run their code in production. And when things go wrong with it how best to find the cause of the issue. And I've never thrown code over a wall without having tested it…
Sysadmins are, 99% of the time, responsible for production uptime. Sadly, management includes all of the software being written in-house in this expectation. Change means instability, means that Sysadmins' feet are held to the fire - this makes them resistant to change.
Software developers, on the other hand, are responsible for making changes. Adding features, pushing fixes, and so forth.
These two points of view are inevitably going to cause friction. Developers are only recently starting to be held responsible for production uptime and the pages that come along with that - and it's a good thing for both sides.
That "most trivial issue" for a developer is something the sysadmin was woken up for 3x in the past, and doesn't want to be woken up for again, so he pushes back. How can he not?
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#203As a grumpy evil sysadmin, I think the good Professor misses where the real disconnect is, at least nowadays: stack management. Why do things like Docker exist? Because developers got tired of sysadmins saying "sorry, you can't upgrade Ruby in the middle of this project". Why does virtualenv exist? A similar reason. Containerized ecosystems (which is to say basically all of them now) are really a sign of those of us…
That's terrible. If I'm a Python dev, why should a sysadmin who doesn't even know Python tell me what version of a library I will use? I have regression tests to catch if an upgrade breaks anyyhing. What does a sysadmin have to approve or deny an upgrade? A little beard stroking and changelog reading? I think the movement towards containers is like you said, to keep sysadmins off the code. Sysadmins add value in sett…
> why should a sysadmin who doesn't even know Python
Because a Python sysadmin has been through all the transitions of packaging systems, all the nasty corners of "backwards compatible" changes, and knows how underlying changes to the operating system will affect your code, what the storage behaves like under load, and why one tech is not "better" than another. If you really hired an admin (cough, "reliability engineer") for a Python codebase that doesn't know Python, well, that's a different question altogether.
> I have regression tests to catch if an upgrade breaks anyyhing
You don't know what you don't know.
When you can reason about the multiple ways the above statement can fail, congratulations! You are now a seasoned sysadmin, the scorn of junior developers who just want to get things done (who incidentally read a great blog post the other day about a new packaging system that we should immediately transition to and by the way it's all backwards compatible).
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#204Nope. SD should not be using DB. They should use API to make REST | Microservices, ex FireBase. SD should not be using servers. They should go serverless, deploy static HTML to CDN> etc. If you are still using docker, puppet or worried about scale/security... you are living in the past. (one ex: https://github.com/struts3/what-demos )
You're right.But like any big change it will take time.Say 5-10 years to most new stuff being serverless.
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#205As a developer with practically no sysadmin skills, how would I go about improving these skills?
Small/micro AWS/Azure instances. Set up your own CI/CD pipeline. Read sysadmin books. Get comfortable with the environment shell (Powershell/bash/etc.) and write some scripts.
Bonus points if you make an actual product that solves a problem and also practice all of these skills.
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I also think it should work both ways. The worst jobs I've ever had is when the sysadmins have the mindset where they own the servers and are unwilling to deviate from what they've read at the behest of the developers. "I will force AV on reads on the developer boxes." "I will install AV on the production DB servers without telling anyone in the development group, then make the developers prove AV was the ca…
what your probably not seeing, is the CIO/CSO screaming at the SA to get AV deployed on every machine in the company, to meet some audit requirement checkbox, or PCI compliance, by the end of the month.
So the problem is effective communication? Why can't the sysadmin in this imagined scenario explain their actions this way?
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#207As a grumpy evil sysadmin, I think the good Professor misses where the real disconnect is, at least nowadays: stack management. Why do things like Docker exist? Because developers got tired of sysadmins saying "sorry, you can't upgrade Ruby in the middle of this project". Why does virtualenv exist? A similar reason. Containerized ecosystems (which is to say basically all of them now) are really a sign of those of us…
As a Sys Admin turned Automation/Tools Engineer, I think you're missing part of the point. You've got the beginning of it right in saying that Sys Admins used to be involved in pinning down versions, and even in why that was necessary, but I believe you're incorrect in saying that the containerization technologies are bad for removing that. Those technologies don't exist so Developers can get around Sys Admins and ig…
> They aren't kids playing with toys that we need to nanny over
In my experience (university), yes they are, and they should do that at home.
Why do you need the latest bleeding versions in the first place?
In my sysadmin experience, people believe software gets bad and deprecated as soon as the glory next breaking version appears. I don't think I need to argue why this is an illogical stance.
With my developers hat on, bumping to the next version mid-process reliably introduces more friction than is worth it. People think the next version solves that one weird issue but ignore that it introduces two new ones and that the software must be changed to fix five new incompatibilities.
But the solution reliably is to just not use that weird feature that caused the bug in the first place, and think what a clean solution would have been. And guess what, the result is a cleaner and more compatible code base. It's a tip that works for me again and again: If there is friction, think - before spending the next hours with an update that will soon lead to new problems.
It's great that you can for example compile Linux without too much friction. It's great that arcane shell scripts can run on any system. Stability (in a compatibility sense) is not a nice-to-have, it's basic sanity.
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#208As a grumpy evil sysadmin, I think the good Professor misses where the real disconnect is, at least nowadays: stack management. Why do things like Docker exist? Because developers got tired of sysadmins saying "sorry, you can't upgrade Ruby in the middle of this project". Why does virtualenv exist? A similar reason. Containerized ecosystems (which is to say basically all of them now) are really a sign of those of us…
As a Sys Admin turned Automation/Tools Engineer, I think you're missing part of the point. You've got the beginning of it right in saying that Sys Admins used to be involved in pinning down versions, and even in why that was necessary, but I believe you're incorrect in saying that the containerization technologies are bad for removing that. Those technologies don't exist so Developers can get around Sys Admins and ig…
Doesn't that constant updating and lack of version oversight create security risks?
Developers may not be as aware of those topics as sysadmins.
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's terrible. If I'm a Python dev, why should a sysadmin who doesn't even know Python tell me what version of a library I will use? I have regression tests to catch if an upgrade breaks anyyhing. What does a sysadmin have to approve or deny an upgrade? A little beard stroking and changelog reading? I think the movement towards containers is like you said, to keep sysadmins off the code. Sysadmins add value in sett…
why should a sysadmin who doesn't even know Python tell me what version of a library I will use Because he maintains that installation and you don't? But, yeah, that's why virtualenv, Docker, etc. were invented, because devs kept getting sick of installations having consequences. What does a sysadmin have to approve or deny an upgrade? Check for conflicts of this version of this library with other software currently…
That's the tail wagging the dog (and I manage the sys admin department at my company).
Re: Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. Is this because the Perl ecosystem is more mature or because of the philosophy of backwards compatibility? The "backwards compatibility" philosophy isn't so explicit for the ecosystem, mostly the language? Is the test-on-install-by-default making a big difference there?
That would seem to be ironic. As a longtime Perl developer who switched (for pragmatic reasons -- a job) two and a half years ago, my impression is that Python [as a language] is much better suited to a business environment. What makes Perl such a wonderful language and why I enjoy it so much is exactly why it blows as a business language. Python's rigidity is very useful if you ever want someone else to read and und…
You talk about that Python have just one possible layout standard and so on, I guess? That is a different subject. (And sure, no coding standard is bad for a project, Python removes that discussion to a degree.)
I think the real problem with Python/Ruby/etc is the surprising lack of an analogue to CPAN Testers.
It isn't just all of CPAN that is tested on different OS/Perl version combinations, it also stress test the Perl versions.