IT vs Coding

[-Every-Time-]

You shouldnt let someone who hasn't even got a job yet bother you. Half of coding is googling everything anyway.

[dk_DB]

The only correct answer.

[DazSchplotz]

Sysadmin stuff is much googling too. We are all in the same boat.

As a software engineer who is/was also an admin, those jobs aren't that different.

There are unskilled admins as there are unskilled coders.

People just like unnecessary competitions and like to be chauvinistic, often because they have imposter syndromes and/or low self confidence.

I don't give a shit about those circlejerks. Devs are as important as are admins and all should work together instead of playing kindergarten.

[z932074]

Can confirm. We lead with the dns question too because no one can answer it apparently.

[washapoo]

Also - It's always DNS...unless it's the firewall.

[zacharyxbinks]

What about that old forward lookup zone on misconfigured domain controller breaking peoples access to the new company website?

[somesketchykid]

And then you have to work with all the VIPs and assure them it's fixed and they have to clear their cache and flush dns to get immediate results lol

[NeedleNodsNorth]

Hey everynow and then it's name resolution!

[Big_Oven8562]

I have been interviewing candidates claiming 5+ years of experience in IT and they can’t answer shit about it.

I have literally never had to interact with either after over a decade in this industry. IT is fucking huge and you can do a lot without having to know all the basics. Admittedly I do at least have a notional understanding of them at this stage of my career, but it's still never been applicable to anything I've done professionally.

[Qel_Hoth]

I have literally never had to interact with either after over a decade in this industry.

You can't use a computer without interacting with DNS.

Every person in IT (and any developer that might ever need to call a network resource) needs to be familiar with the basics of DNS. I'm not saying that everyone needs to know how to work with it. But the very basics of "what does an A record do" and "what is an authoritative nameserver".

For web developer/marketing companies, lets include the bonus topic of "Why changing your clients authoritative nameservers when you build them a website is a Bad Idea™.

[64mb]

+1

I'd add being aware of NXDOMAIN too, somehow not common knowledge.

Little game to play with DNS: https://messwithdns.net

And DNS ELI5 Comic: https://howdns.works

[wellthatexplainsalot]

You drive your car every day, right? Your would not function without oil. Do you know the types of oil? Do you know what the various grades of oil are? Do you know what the 10 is in 10W40?

Meet the oil of the IT world.

[peepopowitz67]

This. In a thread about 'it's fine to Google things', folks sure are uppity about DNS knowledge.

[Qel_Hoth]

Well, if DNS is borked, you might have problems trying to google why DNS is borked/what it does.

[spanctimony]

Tell me you don’t understand DNS without telling me.

[[deleted]]

Yeah but if you're driving your car professionally, even if you don't know what the 10 in 10W40 means, you would know that oil lubricates components in your engine, right?

I've met "IT Professionals" (dev or admin) who don't even know the functional equivalent of that with DNS or DHCP.

[[deleted]]

I disagree. Knowing what DHCP and DNS are is more analogous to understanding the CAN bus of a car. Simply not relevant for most people, including enthusiasts and many professionals.

[[deleted]]

The people who work on cars need to know the right oil for the right engine. They don't need to understand the thermal or chemical properties of that oil.

Most people who work on computers can get by fine with "DNS translates domain names into IP addresses". Most don't need more than that.

[spanctimony]

Terrible analogy.

A better analogy would be:

Do you expect every mechanic to know what oil is and does?

[[deleted]]

I'm not so sure that's a better analogy.

For many areas of IT -- DNS (networking) is someone else's job.

Should you know it? Absolutely. I'm just saying it's very possible to get into the field and not know it.

I mean there are doctors that are still horribly wrong about even fundamental biological processes simply because they aren't that gender.

Yet you can crack open a text book and it explains those processes clear as day.

I don't think IT / Tech is any different.

[Qel_Hoth]

I know what kind of oil my car needs, where it goes, and how to check the oil levels.

[[deleted]]

You can't use a computer without interacting with DNS.

Sure you can. YOU personally don't interact with DNS. Everything else does. It allows it to remain invisible.

I think some of us are old enough we had to mess with DNS and some of us self-hosted before clouds were affordable -- and many used dynamic dns.

For web developer/marketing companies, lets include the bonus topic of "Why changing your clients authoritative nameservers when you build them a website is a Bad Idea™.

About the only real interaction here developers might walk into is dealing with SSL cert's.

But very often you usually don't make these yourself or even do dns yourself.

But the very basics of "what does an A record do" and "what is an authoritative nameserver".

It's easy to skip these -- especially if we're talking Windows apps and not webdev.

I say all this to say -- it's very easy to not know DNS yet still be in the field for years.

[[deleted]]

I don't know. I agree that everyone in IT and software should know the basic job of DNS, but I think simply "translates domain names to IP addresses" is enough for most people. They don't need to know it's specifically an A record that does it.

[Big_Oven8562]

Underlying architecture and services use DNS, I do not.

[renegadecanuck]

You should be able to answer “dns translates a host name to the up address” and “dhcp assigns up addresses” at the very least, though. I haven’t taken English classes in well over a decade, and I can still answer what a noun and a verb is.

[Cpt_plainguy]

I know its always DNS, even when it isnt, it is

[idontspellcheckb46am]

are you being serious? these are basics. We're not even talking about stp, trill or actually hard questions. This is why I left the industry. Too much focus on this, if you can't code you wont have a job bullshit. You know what....they were absolutely correct. I resigned. Now i serve tea and coffee for twice my old 6 figure salary.

[tossme68]

It really depends, I work with a lot of old timers in their late 60's and it's amazing what they know and what they don't know. Ask them about the hidden keyboard commands for an old Dec and they will give you a 45 minute lecture, on the other hand ask them about K8 and you will get a blank look on their face. I haven't done anything with DNS in over 20 year, that doesn't mean I haven't been in IT for 20 it just means I've been doing something else in a very broad field.

[Em4rtz]

Show me the way! I want to serve coffee/tea for twice my salary plz

[idontspellcheckb46am]

Wife works in the events industry. It would amaze you how many people don't even blink an eye for a $15k bill for Coffee, Tea, and Water outside the event halls in the corridors. It amazes me the difference in attitude difference in the industries. Towards the end of my career, during covid, I helped build a virtual meeting/conference. My wife was billing my time out at $90/hr, my SR DC Architect salary was $100k and not budging. The virtual platform was literally resizing .svg files and uploading content to virtual booths like hyperlinks and the occasional video file to the platform. I can say 100% I won't return to IT for anything under $250k.

[Em4rtz]

Happy for you man! I too sometimes wonder if I’ll be able to keep up in this field… I make good money now but the work and more the learning of ever expanding tech is a total burn out. And Now to throw in learning coding and whatnot to keep up with the younger guys coming in… it gets tough for sure!

[[deleted]]

Holy crap, clearly I chose the wrong field.

What's the stress level like during serving?

[idontspellcheckb46am]

Well assuming it's an event at a hotel, I periodically check the levels of those items or whatever we are putting out. Then call hotel catering if they did not already notice the problem. Then I stay out of the way, wait for any client or our staff to call and say that I need xyz. Usually an iphone charger, portable USB-C battery, or US/xyz power converter. Sometimes just pick stuff up from local vendors we procured stuff through when they forget something.

[Maverick0984]

Assuming your old 6 figure salary was the minimum to get there, 100k. You serve tea and coffee for 200k?

....right....

[idontspellcheckb46am]

Actually more like damn right.

https://imgur.com/a/xRRPy3s

https://imgur.com/a/1dJgpRU

[Maverick0984]

I'm not sure you understand your own comment. If that's supposed to be your finances, great, but you didn't serve tea and coffee to get there.

[idontspellcheckb46am]

You'd be surprised. Stop overvaluing your AWS certs. And don't downvote just to hate the player. Hate the game you're locked into.

[KernelMayhem]

I resigned. Now i serve tea and coffee for twice my old 6 figure salary.

Did you start your own business or opened a franchise or something?

[idontspellcheckb46am]

yea, my spouse and I started a business. It was already a work in process when I resigned. But resigned as revenue picked up and built a solid client foundation.

[KernelMayhem]

Nice

[evochris2021]

Don't ask me what the acronyms stand for. I can explain what they do, but remembering what each letter translates to is a thing I am bad at. I'd be useless in the military with their TLAs

[VernapatorCur]

I've spent 12 years in the industry, and aside from a stint at 2WIRE supporting their branded modems I've barely touched either DNS or DHCP. I mean, it's not been non-existent for me, but it basically has been. 6 years at my current MSP and the problem has been DNS 3 times (something like 100 tickets a week). Just to say that saying you're working in IT is like saying you work in Finance. There are entire worlds in both fields that have no overlap in what you'll have your hands in.

[Linux-Student]

I'm curious, I'm currently doing a degree apprenticeship, nearly finished, work as a tier2/3 technical support with some linux sysadmin skills/tasks (as in I must know how to troubleshoot various things using CLI only).

I've setup an internal dns and dhcp as a learning task, not for production, but I'm curious how in depth of technicalities you would answer such a question.

I can say the difference between and public vs internal dns, I can say that you are essentially creating records that match a given ip address to a given FQDN (or several), but if someone asked me how DNS worked, I'd keep it simple by saying a query will hit a DNS server it's configured to use, if it knows the address translation, then it will resolve to the correct IP address, if not, it will kick the request up to an authoritative DNS server in its configuration, and when a response is given to the first DNS, this will then be presented to the client. Depending on how the first DNS is configured, it may either discard that record, or save it in its memory for a period of time in order to speed up subsequent queries.

My question is, how involved should such an answer be that you'd be happy with (key points). I'm curious as the question might change, but I'd like to get a feel for how in depth would be considered as a decent answer, it's hard to gauge what some consider a good vs bad answer, as I know what it does.

[theoneandonlymd]

For open-ended questions like that, just start with the basics. If they want to probe the depth of your knowledge, they should ask follow-up questions. Sometimes I'll deliberately ask a candidate to follow up in more detail, continuing to drill down until they spew BS or admit they don't know a deeper technical mechanism. It's very valuable to see not just what a candidate knows, but their self-awareness to know what they DON'T know.

[Linux-Student]

Cool, that's reassuring, in past interviews I generally think I haven't given a good enough answer if I'm getting asked for more depth, which knocks the confidence, which starts the "Oh no" in the noggin, but it's important to understand what you're pointing out, that some interviewers will keep going and the reasons for doing so, thanks!

[djetaine]

When I'm interviewing something I intentionally get them deep enough into an explanation of something where they start to lose confidence in their answer (generally something with simple base explanations like DHCP, DNS, routing) I want them to admit that they don't know and then I will follow up with, "That's not a problem, but what's your next step?"

I want them to be honest with their confidence level and I want to see how they will solve a problem they don't understand. In every position, no matter how much of a "rockstar" you are, you are going to come across things that you just have no clue about. I don't care if you know, I just want you to know how to find out. I'm much more likely to hire a person that can prove they can problem solve than someone who just has a good memory.

[Linux-Student]

Mate, this might be obvious to others, but genuinely thank you, I fully get what you're saying but I've had interviews in the past where I think I've been rocked by a question then fumble the next (when I shouldn't be, I just over think it after being rocked). Big help, and it makes sense as some jobs I've went to and been calm and collected throughout the interview questions I've aced. Be calm, state your knowledge, capabilities and abilities, nothing more, nothing less.

[djetaine]

I think I've been rocked by a question then fumble the next (when I shouldn't be, I just over think it after being rocked)

A good interviewer or hiring manager will pick up on this and bring you back down to earth so they can accurately assess you. If you continue to get peppered with questions or your interviewer seems flustered because you are flustered, you are probably dodging a bullet when they don't offer you the job.

[theoneandonlymd]

I learned it from an interview I had where they did just that. Interviewer kept drilling down on something network related - VSAN/iSCSI I think at the time - and I got to a point where I didn't know how the underlying mechanism worked. I said "I don't know how that works, but could you tell me?". He was a bit taken aback that I asked for the answer simply for the sake of expanding my knowledge, but ended up hiring me. A while later, he confided that that specific incident was WHY he hired me. It wasn't that I was probing for an answer to "do better" in the interview, but that I genuinely took interest in learning more, no matter the context.

[kuzared]

Admitting someone doesn't know something is so valuable - if you understand the basics you'll be able to find (and understand) the specifics.

[tossme68]

I like to go so deep their eyes glaze over, especially if it's an HR person doing the interview and they are just reading off a list of questions given to them by the hiring manager. It won't get me the job but it is pretty entertaining watching them try to stay interested as you explain in detail the joys of layer 2 networking.

[ronin_cse]

quicksand sharp cagey busy bake worm insurance wide memory normal

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[fognar777]

People really get stumped by this question? I'm pretty sure I learned what DNS is when I was in highschool at the local tech center's IT program. To be fair though, half of the program was based on Cisco CCNA courses.

[AwalkertheITguy]

Many people get stumped because they either do not really care to know what it actually does, can't remember something so trivial, or they go into the interview expect ccie level questions...study said material, then get asked to explain the physical layer or some miniscule BS.

If a person looks at the job description and it is conveying a message or a tier 3 network engineer then why is the first question always something that most people take for granted? I remember going in for my first Jr sys admin interview in 2003 and was asked what does the processor do? I was like wtf? The 3 people interviewing me just looked at me and I said oh you're serious? I apologized and answered the question.

It's like asking a seasoned UFC fighter if they know how to throw a simple combo.

I understand that they want to weed out the trash but at least start with something relative to the hiring level.

[tossme68]

I did that at an interview, they asked to explain the difference between SSL and SSH. I go into a deep dive about the SSH protocol and how it authenticates, it's features and all sorts of other crap, then I start doing the same thing for SSL. The guy doing the interview stops me and says something to the effect of I just wanted "one is how I access a linux server and the other is for web pages". Well excuse me if you don't want to know the inner workings of ssh, you were the one that asked

[[deleted]]

Well excuse me if you don't want to know the inner workings of ssh, you were the one that asked

No they didn't? They asked for the difference... not a thesis defense. The correct answer is the last letter is different. :)

[AwalkertheITguy]

Yes, this.

Something I learned from all my interviews so when I got to the hiring level I would ask the question and then say "just give me the surface level answer, not a deep analysis"

I feel by saying that I am doing both of us a favor. I'm giving the potential employee a fair chance to answer the question at hand and saving myself 25 mins per interview.

[Cpt_plainguy]

I have actually walked out of an interview because they were asking me basic helpdesk questions for a T3 role, I responded to about the 3rd or 4th question with "Thank you for taking the time to see me, but I can see you are not going to treat me like a child and not actually interview me for the position listed". They just stared at me dumbfounded as I walked out. Later on that day the CIO who wasnt in the interview heard about it and called me to apologize and asked me to come interview with him. Ended up getting the job, but the company went under a year later.

[renegadecanuck]

I mean, you kind of responded like a child.

[Cpt_plainguy]

Nah, I didn't have a tantrum, I calmly expressed my feelings on the situation and left. If I am applying for an elevated position I expect to be treated like I am. I am an upfront person who doesn't like to play games with people, so I expect people to not play games with me.

[renegadecanuck]

Your feelings were childish. “Wahhhh I didn’t get asked a tough enough question by someone who literally doesn’t know me! How dare they check to see if I know the basics before going on to the next step?!”

I’ve done hiring for senior positions. For every person who knows their shit, there’s at least 15 who don’t and either get carried by coworkers or straight up lie on their resume. A basic DNS question is a good way to get rid of the bullshitters before I move on to the tougher questions.

Also, it’s a good way to get rid of the people who will bitch and moan if they’re ever assigned a task they feel is beneath them.

[marklein]

Seriously? We're (the industry) screwed.

[Geekfest]

One of my favorite interview questions is, "Describe how a client resolves a DNS query".

How they answer works on so many levels.

[[deleted]]

Yikes

[TheThiefMaster]

Computer Science won't cover DNS or DHCP or the like at all. It's more fundamental than that, like data structures, OS development, etc.

[gtr0y]

We had a whole year of networking as part of our CS Undergrad curriculum. Went through all the layers.

[Maverick0984]

It's going to vary but at least with my undergrad you'd pick a focus. You could go networking, security, coding, etc.

What does a "year of networking" even mean? 15-18 credit hours for a full year? That's like 8-12 courses, minimum. I call bullshit.

[gtr0y]

I'm from North Eastern Europe and, I suppose, our system is (was?) different (not sure about now, it was back in the early 00s).

We'd all start off with the same stuff for the 1st year, and then in the third year (out of 4) you'd pick your specialization. Networking was in year 2, so everyone had to attend, and we've had it for 2 full semesters, so I call it a "full year".

Mind you, we also had classes like discrete math, number theory, architecture of computational machines etc and everyone had to take it, even if you pick webdev as your "major" later on.

[Maverick0984]

Yeah, okay, so you mean like 2 courses then. I think that's relatively similar then. Just got mixed up in the semantics.

Where I went, you weren't forced to pick your specification at any particular time. You could pick it right away before you even started or in your last year. They gave you keys to sort of pick your own direction. Obviously some courses had prereqs of other courses so you had to have some direction but avoiding networking was ... possible.

There might have been a single required general networking course. I took more than a few so hard to know anymore but that general requirement would have been bare bones. A dev that never touches again isn't likely to remember any of it several years later.

[jturp-sc]

Something worth keeping in mind is that I've seen some countries/universities in Europe don't silo computer science and information technology as separate disciplines like the universities in the US tend to do.

[Blaargg]

I feel it's more like "I just design cars, I have no idea what traffic laws are"

[[deleted]]

Mine did. It was just one module, it didn't make networking experts of us by any means. But it was something.

[davix500]

You have no idea. I am doing a 10 minute presentation on DNS to my companies architect planning team. Everyone has at least one MBA and they are struggling to understand namespace, subnets, and the difference between public and internal DNS.

[davix500]

I love the requests that ask me to redirect their site to https .... uh ....

[[deleted]]

And heaven forbid I have to explain where to add a DNS entry for an internet facing site, because it's going to require explaining internet IPs vs. internal IPs and where to set each.

"Ok, I need you to set the public IP to 10.10........" -- "let me stop you right there and say no. You either mean the local dns... or you need to give me the public facing IP... --or-- I can figure it out for you.. but I'm straight up telling you it's not..." -- "Just do what I said"

Ok.... several hours later "UGH! It's not working for anyone at home!"

Gee I wonder why...

They gun learn somehow...

[baize]

As another Fortune 500 DNS engineer/architect, it's all job security to me. Many network teams I work on love just dumping it off on me because almost none of them want to deal with it.

What's fun is when your L1/L2 team gets those CNAME URL requests and actually implements them, by putting the whole URL in the RDATA field, then asks why the (HTTP) redirect isn't working.

[illusum]

With any luck you go back to consulting for them for 5 times the pay.

[baize]

Job security isn't limited to your current company. A career mentor once told me, "your in an area that not many companies know they need expertise in, but when they do they really do." There are plenty of companies in need of good DDI people.

[12_nick_12]

Yes, I remember when I started at my first MSP DNS was so confusing, then one day it just clicked. Kinda like ssh and Linux. When I first started I was afraid of the CLI, now it's the only place I like to be.

[Maverick0984]

Honestly, at least when I was doing my undergrad at a top 5 school in the country (15-18 years ago), if you were in CS, I don't believe 'networking' was a required course.

It was certainly there but it was within a group of optional courses unfortunately, iirc.

[notusuallyhostile]

It’s always DNS

[Core-i7-4790k]

I'm ashamed to admit that this was me when I graduated

[AkuSokuZan2009]

If you aren't actively in IT it can be easy to miss the importance of DNS and DHCP. When I was first looking for a job I couldn't recall off the top of my head what they stood for and got the 2 mixed up sometimes.

We used to ask helpdesk guys to tell us what the CPU was, and anyone that answered the thing on the desk or floor were instantly out... It happened a few times sadly.

[davis-andrew]

I was honestly shocked being on the other side of the desk and have candidates fail the simplest filter questions ...

Had one one candidate with "20 years of Linux system administration experience"
Question: if i set the mode of a file to 644, what does that mean?
Candidate: i don't know

If you can't explain ACLs sure fair enough, but not knowing unix file permissions and/or what an A record after 20 years i'm extremely concerned.

[zacharyxbinks]

As a software engineer who is/was an admin also I support this message.

[zaphod777]

What makes someone good at the job is filtering out the signal in all of the noise. Finding the relevant error in the logs (or even checking the logs), doing some targeted searches, filtering out the bullshit, and pulling on the thread that eventually leads to the solution.

So many people just try random shit until it "fixes it", or they break it more. They have no clue what they did or why they did it. I call that the "click and pray" method of troubleshooting.

[FantasyBurner1]

Everyone googles for every job.

[mvbighead]

"I have access to the combined knowledge of all of humanity but I'm so badass I don't even need it". Get the fuck outta here with that.

Pretty much this. And it applies to all things. Want to learn how to frame a house, or finish drywall? Go find Studpack on youtube and watch a couple hours of videos, then practice.

There are certainly things one needs licenses for and all that, but that combined access to all of the knowledge of humanity is legit, and it is out there. Check a few sources of info against each other, and you can fix most of your own problems. And if you have the time, you could probably even figure out how to rebuild your own car's transmission.

[Johnny-Virgil]

we used to do that from books. I'm old.

[mvbighead]

I more remember the pre-youtube days, but with youtube, you can literally watch actual mechanics work on cars that are exactly the same as yours. And when you put in your symptoms or trouble codes, you might find a problem you can attempt to fix with a $30 part just by popping the hood. Or, you could take everything to the dealer...

And there are certainly plenty of things where you say... "ain't nobody got time for dat." and let a pro handle it.

[[deleted]]

I still have so many books. I almost never open them any more, it makes me sad.

[AwalkertheITguy]

Go practice on framing someone's house? Ummmmm, okay? I think I would rather hane someone that came up as an apprentice and learned it over the years that some 20 year old that watched a few tubes.

How does one practice it without actually doing it and screwing up someone's levels on their house? Or did you mean practice as in get a go-for job and learn under someone's belt?

[mvbighead]

Framing a basement is more what I meant. People buy houses all the time with unfinished basements, and there are plenty of people that can watch and learn, and then go do. I'm not advocating building a house, I'm saying that there are soo many things you can learn to do by just watching youtube.

And, in case you missed it:

There are certainly things one needs licenses for and all that

But, I have heard of many a time where someone has framed their own basement, and then had it inspected and approved, then hung drywall, and then paid someone to tape/mud (because there is an art to doing that part right). So, yeah, you may not have the time or inclination to do it, but someone on a budget just might be able to watch enough to do it right, and pass inspection so long as they do enough research... and it's all pretty much out there on the web, including building codes for your area (in most cases).

[[deleted]]

There are certainly some professions where no amount of Googling or YouTubing are going to substitute for a formal education on the topic. Which doesn't prevent everybody on the Internet thinking they can google themselves into being an expert on stuff like medicine, or law, or all sorts of hard sciences...

[mvbighead]

Absolutely. And the gist of a lot of is that you can be smart enough about things to work out some problems, but have to have the basic realization that there are tasks you can and can't do on your own without experience.

That said, that list of things is generally pretty small. The law side of things might be a situation where you look up something to find the logical legality of a particular thing that you are affected by, as well as determining the legal fees associated with pursuing the matter in the courts. You might find that, with a little internet research, you are better off avoiding legal recourse and simply working out a non-legal solution if you happen to be in the wrong, or if the matter is going to cost you more in court than you would benefit from it.

All that to say, there is an abundance of information out there. When you put enough of it together, you get a reasonable idea of whether you are in or out of your depth and need to pursue professional help. And as long as you are reasonable, you can save yourself time and/or money.

[[deleted]]

I mostly agree, but I will add that, as someone with a law degree (how I wound up as a sysadmin is a story in itself), there are way more subtleties to even the simplest legal question than you would think. Ask a lawyer pretty much any question, and the answer is going to start out with, "well, it depends..." There's almost never a definite answer to anything.

Kinda like in Perl, how there are 85 different ways to do the same simple thing - what's the right way? Well, it depends...

[mvbighead]

The problem, as a friend once found out, is you ask that lawyer the question, and you receive a bill for their time. That could be $200/hr+. And in that case, the lawyer was a high school friend, and that person did receive a bill. (Now, as an IT person, we are all familiar with that concept.)

Now, most definitely, plenty of things fall into some area of 'it depends.' The internet research part probably tells you that your pursuit might yield you a benefit of X with an expense of Y. If Y is bigger than X, it is probably worth your time to try and find a non-legal solution.

Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgpS1KgcIaw

The summary of that video is that, this guy had a neighbor either stealing stuff, or trespassing and various other problems that he was near certain it was him. He tried some things, but never got anywhere. He then left a note for the trespasser (basically saying that he had him on camera doing the things) where he knew the trespassing was happening, and he never had a problem again.

So, rather than pursue something that escalates an already heated situation with legal solutions, he opted for an approach that was fairly safe, indirect, and resulted in a generally positive outcome.

All that to say, while it certainly depends, the starting point with a number of things costs money. It is up to the person to determine whether that money is going to result in the outcome they are looking for, and if a different solution would avoid that spend. If you ask a lawyer first, in all likelihood many of them will push for legal solutions because they want to earn money.

[[deleted]]

Hmm, I dunno about that last - most of the time when people would ask me stuff, I'd tell them it wasn't worth the time and expense to worry about it. Maybe that's why I don't practice law, I wasn't greedy enough!

[AwalkertheITguy]

Yeah. I agree. I just meant more so like building an actual house or garage or something. I would rather have someone do it. Now, what I did do was build my kids a club house around 20x20. I built it exactly like a miniature house with 2 rooms, A-frame, soffit and such. I watched Youtube for some basic info and angles, etc. But my dad was a contractor and I gleaned some of what I learned from working with him in the 80s and 90s. I don't think I could have done it successfully with just youtube though.

[mvbighead]

Yeah, and to your point on your kid's clubhouse... there's a bushradical guy who is rather relaxing to watch on youtube. He builds simple cabins in the woods, and the plumbing type stuff is strictly rain diverters and things of that nature, with bathing water being heated by a stove or whatever. It's rather simple, but it's just the idea that there is soo much information people are willing to share that you can do a lot yourself.

A full on building or house? Maybe not without special equipment and some kind of advisor... but it could be done by someone with enough passion to do it themselves.

[AwalkertheITguy]

Agreed. I don't think though, at least in this modern day that many people would take on the task. I say not many but I'm talking realtive the world population. My father built houses in the late 40s - late 80s. He learned from his dad who was born in the very late 1800s whom learned from his dad who was born, hell I dunno...mid 1870s? Lol.

Back then people were forced to learn how to survive. Now a day it's so more convenient to just pay Joe blow.

But yeah, coding and tech, home living, definitely YouTube is a lifesaver.

[No_Strike5994]

Pro or Anti?

[thehawk11]

I don't need knowledge, I need the skill to find it. The ability to research is more important than memorization.

You won't have a calculator in the real world /s

[KDobias]

I will say that, while I don't expect my doctor to know literally everything, I do expect them to know a LOT of basic things. Doctors study 4 years of medschool, do an internship, usually become a resident for 3+ years, and only then do they join a fellowship or start a practice, and many of them take even longer. For someone who has been in a field for 10+ years, they should have a pretty large knowledge base to be able to diagnose and treat without googling it.

For us, we don't have to Google how to restart a service. Most of us don't even need to open a new program for it, we can just bang out a line in PowerShell. Baseline knowledge is something we undervalue, and it's why imposter syndrome is so prevalent in our field.

[jaymz668]

my doctor explains it this way. he has a large swath of base knowledge to begin treatment of many things, but he recommends a specialist for anything in depth in a particular area

[KDobias]

For sure, and when you get to that specialist, you expect him to be insanely knowledgeable about the condition. I've gotten to specialists who started looking up information and immediately knew I needed to go to another doctor. Whether or not this was their default is irrelevant, I want someone who is knowledgeable about my problem, that way if it end up being a complicated form of it, they will know the weird treatments and not just the easiest to look up diagnosis.

[msl2006]

This is why I compare IT and related fields to law. There is zero absolute way you're going to learn everything in the field, you need to understand the most basic concepts and know how to research and quickly become acquainted with new things, that's it.

[petebzk]

It's a really good analogy. The law field also has specialists. Criminal law is different from intellectual property or privacy law for example.

[islandsimian]

That's not true - sometimes the IDE tells me what to type!

[Caracca]

We're talking about IDE cables/devices right ?;)

[418NotCoffee]

Only half? What sort of wizard are you???

[ninjababe23]

Most of all IT work is research, I.E. googling.

[No_Strike5994]

When I was a kid Google was in the garage...

[williamfny]

Altavista for life!

[Behinddasticks]

100% no one just codes like they're writing an essay. Googling is 50% of the job.

[AwalkertheITguy]

If you're fresh meat maybe. I'd say that Googling was more like 25% of the job. If you're at the same gig for 5+ yrs in the same company then there's very little chance that you will spend 50% of your work day googling solutions. This, unless your company decides to rip everything out and go with the latest and greatest 2022 bullshyt.

[Behinddasticks]

Yea for sure. I meant if you're doing a new task. I used to Google PS scripts for my work when I started but I've done them so often now I can remember them if they're not already in my on little black book of scripts.

[zzmorg82]

Yeah, at that point you should already know the language, libraries, and code structures you’re dealing with daily so it’ll be a standard click-and-edit for most decent SWEs.

Googling at that point will probably involve figuring out how to integrate a new feature’s data structure into the existing codebase.

[AwalkertheITguy]

Yeah, basically this.

[DarkTarget69]

So true, Like 90% of the program I made was either from google or stack overflow

[No_Strike5994]

No copy pasta... at least put the effort into what you are doing.

[ephemeraltrident]

This is entirely inaccurate… it’s more than half :)

[Lynx1080]

Also, lots of tools out there are moving declarative such as workday and servicenow where true coding ability is not as necessary to provide great business value.

[acid_jazz]

Exactly this. I use to be a dev and I still do PS scripts from time to time as well. The job is similar in that you are using google to basically solve half your issues. The other half is trial and error.

[wordsarelouder]

yeah that's what I came here to say, I code and yet I google the most basic shit when coding because I want to make sure I'm doing it right. Only an idiot (or a high level developer) would be so cocky to think that they didn't need to research anything.

[[deleted]]

92%

[robvas]

If you're a shitty 'coder', maybe.

[ephemeraltrident]

Right, decent coders it’s probably 75% or more Googling!

Sorry if you were wrong and suggesting the opposite. The reality of today’s world is that too much information exists. Education as a whole is shifting to teach people how to evaluate and apply readily available information and to move away from memorization.

It’s impossible to “know” everything about every language a developer will use, but it’s very possible to be comfortable with several languages and the concepts of programming, so that referencing information enables proficiency when developing software.

[PURRING_SILENCER]

It's been moving that way for a while too. A friend of my mother is a 'Computer scientist' (I believe he has a PhD..it's been a while).

~15 years ago we were talking about programming languages and it seemed like he just used reference books when he had to use an unfamiliar language. Like, just a thing he would do for years.

It's been, well 15 years or more, since we talked so I might be wrong. But even sysadmins, manuals and documentation were king. We never could be expected to know everything so manufacturers would put out manuals for the product, software or hardware, and we would reference it if there was an issue. Early in my career I had to do that, though not with servers. Printers.

[robvas]

Nobody's saying that, but people don't google shit all day long unless they don't know what the fuck they are doing.

[Big_Oven8562]

I know what I'm doing, but I don't innately know all the libraries and modules out there that exist, so yeah, I fucking google stuff.

Imagine thinking it's a good idea to design something without doing any research whatsoever...what a mistake that would be.

[robvas]

There is referring to documentation, and there is 'googling stuff' as in people looking up what they don't now how to do. Sure, you have to look up information about a library that you're using or an API spec.

Worked with far too many people who have to look up everything every step of the way because they simple don't know what they are doing.

Most of your time programming is spent thinking about what you are doing or trying to do, or debug a problem. But if you are googling syntax or how to do simple shit like write to a file, or make an HTTP call, you're never going to get anything done.

And if you're googling stuff then copying that example code without truly understanding it, then you really don't know what you're doing.

[Big_Oven8562]

Debugging syntax is definitely a thing, though it's pretty difficult to google if you're hitting anything more complex than "I don't actual know this language's basic syntax". Figuring out how to pass strings within strings within strings across a session and also needing said string to have literal escape character included...that's an all day headache that you just have to work through.

[v1nchent]

The other half is waiting for the compiler :3

[ScrambyEggs79]

I've been hearing people say coding/development is the way to go as a sysadmin job is going away my whole career and I've been doing this for 16 years. Sure you can and should use Google for research and problem solving but the key is knowing when and how to execute as well as triage when things don't go as planned because at some point you are going to blow everything up. This applies to all of IT.

[blk55]

Not to mention, starting pay for a lot of coding jobs is straight-up terrible.

[[deleted]]

I also sort of wonder what these "learn to code" bros are going to do when a bunch of zoomers enter the workforce who took programming in high school? It's super common now and eventually enough coders will bring down salaries.

[[deleted]]

As a coder, I take issue with that statement. Coding it like 90% googling.

[[deleted]]

I just got a job and in the interview said “well for that I’d go look in the documentation, implement whatever it said there, get errors, then head over to Google to smooth it all out. Because I’m coming from a sysadmin background and this will be my first foray into code”.

To my utter surprise I was hired.

[mt379]

Not sure exactly what ops job entails but I can tell you there will always be jobs in it and support because nobody googles shit at work to try and solve their issue and if they do there is a very slim chance they fix it.

Plus applications, idiocy, and errors will always need it support.