[ale] Breaking into the field [Inquiry]

Sat Sep 30 09:15:35 EDT 2017

All of that is great advice. I only want to add that you should learn how to 
run your own email, web, DNS (and whatever else you want) servers.

Go to tldp.org and learn what email is, how it works, and put up your own 
server (use postfix instead of sendmail, but do it), and do POP3, then later 
IMAP Idovecot for each). Ditto HTTP with apache. Write your own BIND zone 
files. Fgure out how to write your own firewall rules, and use that intead of 
relying on some little blue box. Learn the basics of what these protocols are 
all about.

If someone came looking for a job and didn't know how to do the Internet, I 
would not hire them.

--Joey

On Saturday 30 September 2017 08:17:27 DJ-Pfulio wrote:
> Darrell nails it below, except ... I've never seen **any** router with
> emacs.  They all have vi/vim.   Vim in the hands of a master is amazing,
> BTW.
> 
> Besides that, I would only add that knowing 5 scripting languages would
> be useful and concentrating on python seems to be the way of the world
> these days.
> * bash/sh/ksh
> * python
> * perl5
> * awk
> * ruby
> 
> New stuff is being written in python and bash.  Old stuff - and there is
> lots and lots of old stuff - is in perl, awk, sh, ksh.   Ruby is useful
> for Chef/Puppet and a few other things.  Ruby is OO from the start, so
> it is more like Java than Python.
> 
> Perl6 has lots of great stuff, but only the experts are using it. It is
> almost a completely different language than perl5. I've **never** seen
> it in the wild and never seen it used for sysAdmin stuff.
> 
> C is always useful, since admins often need to compile old-school tools
> for their systems.
> 
> Opinion:
> Java is pretty worthless - after you learn how much it sucks and how to
> deploy it. Inside an enterprise, Java is the normal language - cough -
> cough - used by the internal devs.  Many good reasons for that, but it
> doesn't help that it sucks RAM and CPU like no other language.  Heck,
> even Rust would be a step up from Java and I hate rust.
> 
> There is 1 thing that is funny about Java ---- jRuby, which runs on a
> java JVM, usually/often runs faster that way then on a native ruby
> installation.  Plus, inside a corporate environment, Java has been
> approved for production deployment, but ruby often has not ... so to get
> the productivity of Ruby and meet the corporate standards, Ruby is often
> deployed on jRuby infra.
> 
> For non-trivial internal applications, Ruby is the most productive
> language I've ever seen.
> 
> Virtualization, DevOps, SecOps, and Cloud stuff are definitely the way
> 70%+ sys Admin jobs are headed.
> 
> On 09/30/2017 07:42 AM, Darrell Golliher wrote:
> > Sometimes overlooked are the job opportunities in higher education.  I
> > got my start in the University System of Georgia (specifically UGA).
> > 
> >  I found both the work environment and the technology community to be
> > 
> > nurturing.   At least when and where I started there were interesting
> > problems to work on and the pace and culture allowed time to learn
> > while practicing.
> > 
> > I was surprised to learn sysadmins exist who haven't learned to
> > program.   Some skills I consider essential.
> > 
> > * The ability to automate sysadmin work (i.e. being able to write
> > software)
> > * Mastery of a text editor.   Better still mastery of one you can use
> > on a remote server (vim, emacs)
> > * Mastery of the Unix shell Bash or Zsh
> > 
> > Ok, all that said. the world has changed.   Less in demand (I think)
> > are old school sysadmins  I can say that; I am one).   These days
> > learning infrastructure as code and cloud platforms as well as CI/CD
> > systems will make you markable for "DevOps."    Master AWS, GCP,
> > Azure, CloudFormation, Terraform, Chef/Puppet/Ansible, CI/CD and I
> > predict you'll have great prospects.
> > 
> > -Darrell
> > 
> > On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 7:37 PM, Linda Stroud <gracenewhart at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> >> Here's a great article about how to land your first IT job.
> >> 
> >> https://blog.howtonetwork.com/firstjob
> >> 
> >> Thanks.
> >> 
> >> On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 11:52 AM, Arie vW <willigen.van.a at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> >>> Hello everyone,
> >>> 
> >>> Some of you may know me from the Sunday meet-ups at Harry's Pizza. I am
> >>> looking for input on how I might land my first Linux related job. My end
> >>> goal is to find myself in the role of a Junior Systems Administrator
> >>> somewhere within a few years.
> >>> With no technical background, my research has indicated that I must
> >>> start
> >>> at the bottom, ie. Help Desk. It was also recommended that I look for
> >>> any
> >>> position within a web hosting company, since nowadays these companies
> >>> tend
> >>> to run Linux under the hood.
> >>> I am striving to learn as much as I can about Linux server
> >>> implementation
> >>> and maintenance and wanted to reach out to see if anyone had any
> >>> suggestions on how I might get my foot in the door somewhere, or any
> >>> other insightful pieces of advice.
> 
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-- 
Joey Kelly
Minister of the Gospel and Linux Consultant
http://joeykelly.net
504-239-6550