The Rise and Rise of IT Administrators 686
maffstephens writes "Have you noticed how difficult it's become to develop software? Not because software is more complex, but because there seems to be an army of administrators standing in your way - sys admins, network admins, database admins, runtime admins - the list is endless. They should be there to help us, to make our lives easier, but the reality is often very different. This thought-provoking article from Software Reality is all about the emerging culture of spiteful, dog-in-the-manger prevention amongst corporate IT administrators. Software development has become so inefficient as a result, it's no wonder so many companies are outsourcing."
the solution is easy for programmers.. (Score:1, Funny)
for (i = 0; i < ADMIN_LIST_SIZE; ++i) {
delete admins[i];
}
Re:We Need Less Planning and More Coding (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like how they wrote Windows ME.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
They should be there to help us (Score:5, Funny)
They need to wake up and understand that us developers are the true brains behind the enterprise. We walk on water. We are GODS I tell you. I can't count the number of times I've had to yell at my sysadmins for making the coffee too strong, not popping grapes in my mouth fast enough, or moving the hand-fans too slowly. The fuckers. It's as if they don't understand that their purpose in life is to serve me. That the entire company exists not as a profit generating entity, but as my personal support system. Heaven forbid I do something smart like suggest or create a decent PROJECT LIFE CYCLE to avoid conflicts with other departments. I'd much rather whine on slashdot. Now I have to go. My 3 o'clock rubdown is coming up and I need at least another 2 hours of slashdot reading time before that. I mean christ, what do they pay me for.
Re:Outsourcing (Score:5, Funny)
You only get to pick 2.
Re:Work For Yourself (Score:3, Funny)
On the positive side: good chance of being employee-of-the-year.
Re:Have you ever stopped to think ... (Score:3, Funny)
If helping the users helps the bottom line, then you're right. If the users want to do dev work on a production system and threaten the revenue stream, then chopping of the user's genitals and hanging them on the door as a warning to others is the correct thing to do.
Re:In all areas (Score:1, Funny)
Basically, in many schools the IT admin staff are mindless glove puppets of RM and can only do what RM say. There's not a lot of point in hiring someone who knows what they're doing when they will charge twice the amount but not be allowed to do any more than reboot or reimage.
Oh yes, and the typical RM contract prohibits any other company's equipment being connected to the network. If that's not abusing your position I don't know what is.
Re:Developers (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, we do that, but we in IT still end up supporting the people who can't be bothered to figure out who actually runs the development network. The development network is behind a firewall and we don't allow pings through (MS-Blaster and Lovesan containment). They run everything on their side of the firewall, DNS, domain controllers, AntiVirus (more frequently disabled or not installed), security patches (NEVER!) etc.
Just before Thanksgiving, I got a call from one developer saying he couldn't reach the FTP server. My call back went something like this:
IT: Can you describe the problem?
DEV: I can't reach the corporate external FTP server. I can't ping it, either.
IT: Pings are disabled between subnets and VLANS for antivirus reasons. How exactly are you trying to get to the FTP server?
DEV: I go into Internet Explorer and type FTP in the location bar.
IT: Can you get to the FTP server from the command line?
DEV: You mean with ping?
IT: No, by using FTP. Ping is blocked by the firewall and on the routers.
DEV: Uhh.....
IT: Open a command prompt. Type nslookup
DEV: You mean ping?
IT: No, type nslookup ftp.
DEV: It came back with Non-existent domain.
IT: Right. What does it say is your DNS server?
DEV: Develop. It's our Primary Domain Controller.
IT: Let's try using the IP address type ftp xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.
DEV: Hey, I got a login prompt. Let me try this in Internet Explorer. OK it works.
IT: Do you know who administers the PDC/DNS server you're connected to?
DEV: I think IT does.
IT: No, we don't. It's part of the development network. You have a name resolution problem. Try contacting the system's administrator and have them correct the name resolution problem.
DEV: But shouldn't I be able to ping the FTP server?
IT: (Stunned silence)
Re:Have you ever stopped to think ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Developers (Score:3, Funny)
He said to the SA who has had to explain how the new operator works in C++ to a C++ developer, and has had to explain how to set an environment variable in Windows NT to another C++ developer. Would you like me to continue?
Re:Outsourcing (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, you pick two -- but you tell us which one you really want. We try for the second one.