[TriLUG] The thin line...

[Matt Frye]

On 9/28/06, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know that we've got members who consider themselves sysadmins, and
> others who consider themselves programmers.

I'm thinking about my last two or three jobs, so what follows is very
cross-industry and reflects a few different approaches.  Among them,
health care (safer == more profit) and telecommunications (new
technology == more profit).

> 1) make (or less likely perhaps, ant or rake)

Just in patches that *we* created for specific customers on non-Linux
boxes.  In Tekelec's Linux based products, RPM was used to similar
effect.

> 2) A configuration management/repository system like cvs or subversion.

Constantly.

>     bash or your favorite shell : 10
>     perl: 1, object oriented perl to be exact *shiver*
>     python: 1, but usage is not yet widespread in any environment I'm used to
>     ruby: 0
>     php: 1 - several projects at Rex
>     c(++): C - 1, C++: 0
>     COBOL <G>: These days 0.  The last time I wrote a piece of COBOL, I put in a tab.  Good night, Irene.

In general, we used a specific set of tools for each job.  In health
care, scripting languages du jour were discouraged to preserve
maintainability.  That being said, I spent a fair amount of time
rewriting poorly designed ksh scripts whose intention was obscurity
for pride's sake.  A bad scene, but I learned a lot about what *not*
to do.

By contrast, Tekelec decided (before my time there) to switch from
shell scripts to OO Perl for key product functionality.  I have no
insight into this decision.

-- 
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattfrye