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- Path: presby.edu!jtbell
- From: jtbell@presby.edu (Jon Bell)
- Subject: Re: Info on being a Systems Programmer/Analyst?
- Message-ID: <Doo5o5.CB4@presby.edu>
- Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 12:36:05 GMT
- References: <4itd85$28s0@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>
- Organization: Presbyterian College, Clinton, South Carolina USA
-
- <tnagy@ibm.net> wrote:
- >Quite a few people here gave you good advices, but nobody seems to
- >answer your question. Being a SYSTEMS Programmer is quite different
- >from being a Programmer. While a programmer builds applications, the
- >system programmer's job is to fine tune and maintain the computer system,
- >so that the programmers and users can work on it as smoothly as possible.
- >
- >Some of the responsibilities (just to give you an idea):
- >
- >- install and maintain software packages
- >- advise management of hardware/software requirements
- >- monitor and improve access to system resources
- >- setup new users (access rights, password, etc.)
- >- solve system access problems
-
- Those are a system *administrator's* responsibilities. A systems
- *programmer's* job is to write and maintain utilities and
- operating-system level software. The same person may very well perform
- both functions on a small system, but the two jobs require different
- enough skills that most sites that can afford it will have separate
- positions for them.
-
- I do some of the system administration work here, and it doesn't involve a
- lot of heavy programming... most of the programming I do is either (a)
- writing perl scripts or shell scripts to automate "bookkeeping" tasks or
- (b) porting software (which usually means tinkering with options in a
- makefile, without writing or modifying actual C code).
-
- --
- Jon Bell <jtbell@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
- Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
-