Is scripting "programming" or is scripting "system administration?"

Question

Joel and Jeff talked about launching an "IT Pro" version of Stack Overflow during the most recent podcast. This raises a lot of interesting questions (besides "what should it be called?") - scripting falls right in that space between systems administration and "real" programming, so which community should we scripters/sysadmins hypothetically be involved with?

Answer 1

I knew a lot of people who could "program" a TI-83 with formulas, doesn't make them programmers.

Answer 2

I could see a split existing between IT and commercial software development as these can be separate worlds to some extent.

Scripting is what a variety of folks do including administrators, testers, and analysts in some cases beyond the simple programmer. ;-)

Answer 3

Programming: Creating large complex applications. Makes our lives hard. This is what programmers do.

Scripting: Automate tasks inside these applications. Makes their lives more easy. This is what sys-admins do.

In this context, an OS can be seen as application.

Answer 4

Yes.

Seriously, you probably need to pick which community is more likely to have the answer you are looking for. If the question is about a crontab script, for instance, I'd lean toward the system administration site. If it's about gluing together applications, I'd put it here. In any case, it's a foolish SA/programmer who does not write and use scripts to get their job done.

But as one with feet in both rooms, it's not a bright and clear line. The new site seems like a mistake and diluting the audience to me.

Also see this question.

Answer 5

Yes.

I have written many perl / shell scripts < 100 lines or so that were definitely "scripts".

I have also written a good number of systems in interpreted languages (e.g. - perl, again) with multiple files / modules. I'd like to think I was still a programmer while doing that (even though it was a "scripting" language), even though I was not using C, java, whatever compiled language at the time.

It depends upon the intent. If you are providing input files, directories and / or env vars (registry goo?) only, it's probably admin type work. If your intent is to do significant data manipulation and/or provide a user interface, then call it programming an app, I guess.

Now I know better and would use Ruby, of course, instead of perl :-)

Answer 6

Scripting is programming. If done for sysadmin purposes, it is also system administration.

As far as the question is concerned, I'd think sysadmin/IT guys should judge their interests for themselves; those who find that they aren't interested in what's on the "real programming" site don't have to read it.

Answer 7

Why does it have to be either/or? I am a member of many forums and communities. I am both a system administrator and hobbyist developer already.

I will ask question that are primarily system admin/network things on the networking forum, and the software development stuff here. If an issues might apply to both, I might even cross-post and simply add some hyperlinks between the two sites.

Answer 8

IMHO a good programmer is a good system administrator also, as they know how the whole system fits together. The exact same thought processes are involved in both. Or looking at it another way, there is no significant separation of "programming" or "system administration" as you're always just organizing logic between data.

Answer 9

It depends on the purpose of the script. If the script is to control the user environment at login, then it's sysadmin related. If the script is part of a build system and moves object files around or something to that effect, then it's programming related.