Essential 'Programming' Skills for Non-Programmers

'Matthew Martin' on Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:18:04 GMT, sez:

English# It's this hot new work flow programming language that developers use to program computer operaters and other non-programmers. Compiled English# applications are often called SOPs or user manuals. English# is executed by the non-programmer runtime--also called a brain. However, exception handling is limited. If English# throws an exception, users still have to call the help desk, execute an RTFM command, or failing that, learn to read the c# source code.

'aaron' on Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:41:39 GMT, sez:

ow ow ow ow ....

you might want to put a smiley after that coffee comment...

admins are kinda touchy that way.

(ref: http://bofh.ntk.net/ )

'Marty' on Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:43:31 GMT, sez:

Have to agree with Matthew above. Of course, replace English with whatever your native tongue is.

'engtech' on Fri, 09 Mar 2007 16:51:48 GMT, sez:

I'd add "learn regular expressions"

Ever see someone hack together something that could be done with one line of a regular expression?

It's very painful.

'Jeff Zanooda' on Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:46:11 GMT, sez:

Ever see someone trying to read line noise like this
[-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]+([eE][-+]?[0-9]+)? ? It's very painful.

'marty' on Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:12:59 GMT, sez:

Those are "Programming" now? Hmm.. I use SQL queries for logparser, does that count?

I'm quite aware of all of those things, although I hate XML being used as a database -- try backing up fifty THOUSAND tiny xml files in one directory and learn the wonders of file systems that can't cope. For added fun, try to browse the directory.

As for coffee, I'll have a mocha latte. Hurry up, I'm busy reading your email.

'lb' on Sat, 10 Mar 2007 09:56:24 GMT, sez:

hey Engtech -- it may cheer you to know that i originally included regular expressions in this list.

reasons for including Regex -- it's a technology that will never go away, it's versatile and it's damn powerful.

reasons for excluding regex -- i don't want to have to decipher and help with everyone else's regex.

lb

p.s. i'm a fool so i'll try deciphering this:

[-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]+([eE][-+]?[0-9]+)? ?

an optional plus or minus followed by any number of digits, optionally followed by the literal decimal point, followed by one or more digits, optionally followed by --
an 'e' (or an 'E'), maybe a plus or minus and one or more digits.

if in doubt, email darren neimke -- that's my approach.

'Mamurra' on Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:26:44 GMT, sez:

Yes, learn SQL, but by for the love of all, don't go around creating Access databases that you later expect programmers to support.

'Suraj Barkale' on Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:32:12 GMT, sez:

Please please please use Styles in word. That way you don;t have to change fonts at 100 different places.

'Nabizzle' on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:43:09 GMT, sez:

Well, any admin worth his salt will at least script, if not outright program. I know I would be worthless without perl and ruby, and now, potentially Powershell.

'lb' on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:37:32 GMT, sez:

yes Nabizzle -- scripting definitely. But i don't know of any one scripting language that has the wide-spread adoption and longevity of the other skills (html and sql for example).

if i said 'perl' for example -- you could point to a lot of workplaces where perl isn't used. ditto for ruby, python, powershell, and every other scripting language.

i agree though that admins ought to be proficient scripters. just can't think of specific scripting technology that is applied everywhere.

lb

'??????' on Wed, 09 May 2007 22:59:26 GMT, sez:

Here's your coffee sucker!!
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