[Gllug] Controversial Joel Spolsky article

[itsbruce at uklinux.net]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 01:06:34PM +0000, Bernard Peek wrote:
> That's partly what I was getting at. The traditional sysadmin has 
> already disappeared from most computer sites, because most sites are now 
> a single home user with a single PC.

Home computers represent only a fraction of worldwide computer use in
total.

> The jobs that were done by 
> sysadmins are either done by the user, or don't get done at all.

At home, yes, making home users a special case.  Don't forget, though,
that most of those home users also use computers at work, where
conditions are entirely different.

> 
> Perhaps its a question of terminology. The way I see it if the job has 
> been de-skilled so much as to be almost unrecognisable should it still 
> be called sysadmin? If not then every PC owner is a sysadmin. They 
> manage a cold-boot of the system every day, and quite a lot of them 
> handle backups too. Both of those were once sysadmin jobs.

Turning a computer on and copying some user files to a zip drive hardly
represent the sum of an administrator's job.  Besides, most home users
administer their home computers very badly, home computers absolutely
*not* having been improved and simplified to the point where unskilled
users can use them easily and efficiently.

> 
> I remember hearing of a program called The Last One that claimed to have 
> made programmers obsolete. I didn't believe those claims any more than I 
> believe claims that sysadmins aren't needed any more. But it is 
> definitely true that a lot of programming is now done by people who 
> aren't programmers and a lot of systems administration is done by people 
> who aren't sysadmins.

Only because the demand for computing services has expanded
significantly faster than the pool of skilled IT staff.  The fact that
much IT administration and development is being done by poorly skilled
staff doesn't mean that it is being done well.

-- 
Bruce
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