what to learn

Mon Aug 26 14:36:33 MST 2013

My two cents....

Learn what interests you.

Find a project that you like, and start working on it. It can be personal,
or opensource.

Learning is life long.

Just start scratching those itches!

;-)

Mark
On Aug 26, 2013 2:10 PM, "Paul Mooring" <paul at opscode.com> wrote:

>  <ignore>I don't care for python at all and actively avoid it.
>  Syntactically is a bad idea that should go away and the "there's only one
> way to do it" attitude is completely wrong.</ignore>
>
>  Bash vs. <insert your scripting language of choice> are good at teaching
> different things.  Bash is mandatory for sys-admins but generally doesn't
> teach great scripting/programming practices as semantically it works quite
> different.  Any other more robust language (perl, python and ruby being the
> big 3) will do a much better job of teaching you "how to code" by
> introducing proper usage of things like functions, objects (hopefully) and
> data structures.  In my opinion you would be well served by either one
> depending on what you're hoping to gain from it (bash for leveling up your
> sys-admin or python for building a dev baseline).
>
>
>  Paul Mooring
> Operations Engineer
> www.opscode.com
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org <
> plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org> on behalf of Michael Havens <
> bmike1 at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, August 26, 2013 1:58 PM
> *To:* Main PLUG discussion list
> *Subject:* Re: what to learn
>
>  Thank you so much for your answers. Okay... here is what I think I'll
> do; scripting and linux from scratch first. While programs are compiling
> with LFS I'll work on python. I have a python book, it is Python, How to
> Program but it is old (2002). I also have a book entitled "Linux Shell
> Scripting with BASH". What do you recommend? I think I should do scripting
> with BASH because, while it too is old (2004), BASH has always been the
> same and therefore the age of the book is irrelevant (I think).
>
> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 8:34 AM, George Toft <george at georgetoft.com>wrote:
>
>>  To add to what Paul said . . .
>>
>> What interests you?  I know many sysadmins that don't develop code; many
>> developers that can't spell Linux (OK, they can, but they also think 777
>> permissions fix everything, even access to data files).  I've even met SA's
>> that couldn't script, but that limits their usefulness and shows a lack of
>> motivation and curiosity - both highly desirable traits in the workplace.
>> IMHO, learn scripting not just to learn it, learn it to make your work more
>> efficient.  If you can document some manual task, you can automate it.
>> Then you can then run that automation on all the servers in your care and
>> have time left over, which makes you efficient.  In a previous job, I had
>> over twice the number of servers as anyone else on my team, and four times
>> the company average because I documented and semi-automated the server
>> build finishing process, and I automated the daily health check.  So all my
>> servers were consistent (almost identical) and I was done with my daily
>> routine by 10am.  This gave me time to help others, project work, find ways
>> to improve processes, collateral duties and irritate management.
>>
>> And then there's security . . . I got a phone call one day asking to
>> speak to the head of IT Security.  I work at a large organization and
>> quickly counted up 11 different security organizations - which one would
>> you like to talk to?  Click.  LOL.  We have network, application,
>> infrastructure security organizations, and their operations, engineering
>> and architectural groups.  And don't forget audit, compliance, and CISO.
>> Most people think network operations when they think of security, but there
>> is so much more to it.  Looking at the 10 Domains of the CISSP (Certified
>> Information System Security Professional) certification shows there is a
>> lot to "IT Security."
>>
>> So whereas I hate to see security last in your list (most companies put
>> security last on their list, too), the reality is you need to have a solid
>> foundation doing *something* before you go down that road.  Understanding
>> the fundamentals and history will help, like . . . why is there a shadow
>> file?  . . . what is the directory sticky bit used for? . . . why isn't the
>> classic File Security Packet suitable for some common security situations?
>> Why did the NSA develop SELinux, then absolutely fail at deploying THEIR
>> OWN CREATION and allow Edward Snowden* inappropriate access to classified
>> materials (hidden question is what does SELinux provide that would have
>> prevented this situation; and the bonus question is prove my implied
>> assertion false)?  If I were to point to one thing in security to pique
>> your curiosity, I would suggest looking up the FBI Top Ten for Unix
>> Security and understand how to find and fix those problems.  As you can
>> tell by my questions, I'm not a developer, even though I was (a long time
>> ago in a galaxy far, far away), and that's a whole different world, too.
>> If coding interests you, pursue certification in secure code development -
>> that will help you in many ways.
>>
>> * I hope you ratbastards at the NSA read this email and understand how
>> you utterly failed in the most incompetent way.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> George Toft
>>
>>  On 8/23/2013 1:11 PM, Paul Mooring wrote:
>>
>>   I think there's a bit of a misconception for how the industry works
>> that leads to questions like this.  Web design is really more of it's own
>> thing centered around graphic design and css, although programs *have* to
>> know html these days.  Outside that it sounds like you are getting ahead of
>> yourself in terms of specialization, everyone doing non-entry level IT work
>> needs to know a bit of programming (you can call it scripting if you like)
>> and any non-entry level programmer needs to know a bit the systems they
>> right code for (sys-admin 101).
>>
>>  If what you're worried about is building up the knowledge needed for a
>> career, in my opinion the right approach is "what don't I know?"  If you
>> have never written any code before don't worry about learning web
>> development, go learn some basic scripting simple perl/ruby/python scripts
>> and the basics of writing code in general.  If you're comfortable with that
>> but you don't know how your OS works, go set up a linux server or compile a
>> kernel or whatever else interests you.  If you already know all that dive
>> into something deeper, pick up a new programming language or run through
>> linux from scratch.
>>
>>  One more thought, I'm of the opinion you can't "learn security"
>>  Securing a system is really more of a by-product of intrinsically
>> understanding that system and how it can be exploited.  That implies that
>> if you aren't already very competent writing code and understanding system
>> internals you can't be a useful security person until you are.
>>
>>
>>  Paul Mooring
>> Operations Engineer
>> www.opscode.com
>>
>>  ------------------------------
>> *From:* plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org
>> <plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org><plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org>on behalf of Michael Havens
>> <bmike1 at gmail.com> <bmike1 at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Friday, August 23, 2013 11:31 AM
>> *To:* PLUG
>> *Subject:* what to learn
>>
>>  you know, I've asked the question about what to learn multiple times. I
>> think I've been asking the wrong question. The new incarnation of my
>> question is what do you think I should learn. Programming is one option and
>> web design is another. Is there another option i'm not thinking  of? I
>> guess security is a third. Any others? Things to consider when answering
>> that question would be what is needed? What is the potential? What isn't
>> being addressed.... things like that.
>>
>>  I have more questions but I guess we should get that question out of
>> the way first.
>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>
>>
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