Re:Software Developers Should Have Sysadmin Experience
by eropple on Monday January 09, 2017 @05:29PM
(#13360429)
> If at all possible you should use the least code possible to do a given job, and rely on the reuse of tools to serve various functions.
I agree, on both counts--and you should write the least code possible and reuse the most tools possible when you're building a web app, too! And when I am managing systems and infrastructure, I am reusing tools that are configured and operated through the expression of domain-specific code in Ruby. When I'm solving a problem, I'm writing code in Chef or in Cfer/CloudFormation (if I'm touching a machine by hand that's outside of my burn-it-down test environment, something's going really, really wrong). I'm consciously writing that code in such a way that I can put it into an automated test environment based on preconditions and postconditions that map to the business logic of the system to ensure correctness when that code is then changed. If I need to solve a related problem later, I'll generalize the code for least-effort reuse at that point.
This is literally software development, to me. That the output involves a configured system instead of a web app or whatever is orthogonal to being software development. It still feels like you are drawing a distinction without a difference.
I agree, on both counts--and you should write the least code possible and reuse the most tools possible when you're building a web app, too! And when I am managing systems and infrastructure, I am reusing tools that are configured and operated through the expression of domain-specific code in Ruby. When I'm solving a problem, I'm writing code in Chef or in Cfer/CloudFormation (if I'm touching a machine by hand that's outside of my burn-it-down test environment, something's going really, really wrong). I'm consciously writing that code in such a way that I can put it into an automated test environment based on preconditions and postconditions that map to the business logic of the system to ensure correctness when that code is then changed. If I need to solve a related problem later, I'll generalize the code for least-effort reuse at that point.
This is literally software development, to me. That the output involves a configured system instead of a web app or whatever is orthogonal to being software development. It still feels like you are drawing a distinction without a difference.