Posted: 2/3/2008 10:37:59 AM EDT
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I need to buy a gift for a young man who is getting his start as a computer systems administrator. I understand that he needs a tool kit. What should I buy him and where can I find it? |
| I have a mix of stuff. You may want to get him a aluminum case from Home Depot or Lowes to start. If he runs a project with contractors or temps you may want to get him a few basic tools to loan out. Side cutters screw drivers ect. Give him the reciept for those the company may reimburse when they walk off. |
Everyone I've ever seen was complete crap. It's hard to buy something like that for him, it would be like buying a motor part for a race car driver... nothing you know how to get is going to be useful for him. Something useful? Get him/her a gift certificate at amazon or some funny shit from www.thinkgeek.com (I love that website). |
| The industry standard is Jensen Tools, now owned by Stanley. I'd look at this tool set. |
Prices on those are outragous for Stanley quality. |
I will remember that comment when I am rewiring misbehaving NetApps so that I can get accounting back up. |
Developers usually don't know shit. You can't fault most UNIX guys for working off of a lifetime of observations. Want to know how you can tell the difference? You never, ever see decent developers unless something is actually wrong. The other 90% are busy trying to blame your servers/mainframes/minis/phase of the moon/biorythms for their crappy code. I miss COBOL, I really do. You could write passable COBOL with a guy who was fixing trucks in the motor pool six months before and the ones who were good could do brilliant work. C is hard to do well period, C++ more so, and the average folks who could do OK with COBOL do horrifying things with C et al. And then the blame the sysadmins. |
i was one of those cirucs folks for 15 years. i have seen more "admins" that thought they were techs break things than actual hardware failures. i agree with the sentiment though. NEVER let anyone you don't trust implicity monkey with the box. sadly today most companies feel they can pay nothing and teach nothing to the technical service force and get by. You get older guys with tons of experience getting pushed out of the field in favor of low paid A+ grads that can barely spell pc. i saw it at IBM everyday. Every year it got worse and worse. that's why i went into admin and programming 
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dear lord ain't that the truth |
I have a rolodex (well, not really, but close) of those old farts, many of whom will work contract as needed for $150+/hr. I have so little sense of humor left with kids screwing things up that I often come off with the warmth and humor of a serial killer. On Monday, I am going to fucking barbeque some asshole from Adic who couldn't keep his smart mouth under control. And then I am going to write a very complementary letter to the manager of the kid who replaced smart-mouth on the phone. It's a living. |
Been doing C for over 20 years on unix boxes. Have seen a lot of no talent a$$clowns trying to do that too, so developers suck too, I agree. |
It's hard to get good people. No one sees it as a career any more. |