"Strong Scripting Skills" - a definition?

[richard childers / kg6hac]

>
>
>how will I know
>when I can say with confidence that I have "strong" scripting skills?
>

[1]   If you can teach your interviewer(s) something that they did not 
know, you can say you have strong scripting skills. Note that this 
definition is relative to your interviewer's skill level.

[2]   If you have source code that you don't mind showing others, doing 
something serious that they lack, and your readers can understand it, 
you have strong scripting skills. Extra points if they did not know that 
they needed it until you walked into the room and started talking. Extra 
points if it runs on their computers without tweaking. Extra points if 
it can be downloaded from the Internet and demo'd during the interview.

[3]   If you have scripting skills that span several shells and can talk 
knowledgably about past projects using them all, you probably have 
strong scripting skills.

[4] If you have scripting skills that span several scripting languages 
and can talk knowledgeably about the differences between interpreted and 
compiled code, know who Kernighan and Plauger are, and can quote from 
The Element of Programming Style ... you probably have strong scripting 
skills.

All that having been said, you will occasionally run into anal 
programming types who spent some time at college poring over shell 
source code, and whom think they are better than you. They will be eager 
to prove it to you; they might even be right. You probably won't want to 
work with them, anyway, and they probably need to spend a few years 
writing production shell scripts for a living to get that ivory tower 
polish off them; keep moving and don't look back.

(Live365 comes to mind ...)

Remember that there are thousands of programmers out there who taught 
themselves shell programming; don't feel bad about what you don't know, 
but do feel sorry for the people you meet whose superiority does not 
allow them to raise others to their level of education.

I have heard of people whom represent themselves as adept at shell 
programming, whose jaws drop when you ask them, 'Which shell?'. So care 
is indicated.


Regards,

-- richard

-- 

Richard Childers / Senior Engineer
Daemonized Networking Services
945 Taraval Street, #105
San Francisco, CA 94116 USA
[011.]1.415.759.5571
https://www.daemonized.com




Jesse Adelman wrote:

>Hi, all. This may be a question whose answer is "If you have to ask,
>you don't have them." ;) I'm a Linux/*NIX sysadmin, and I've seen
>always seen positions that require "strong scripting skills". I've
>scripted tasks to automate them, using Bash, Perl, Bourne, and others.
>I know my way around CPAN. But, I know that there are many others with
>better scripting skills than me (like, for instance, the authors of
>"UNIX Power Tools" or, say, "Perl Cookbook"...). So, how will I know
>when I can say with confidence that I have "strong" scripting skills?
>Is there a standard out there?
>
>I've been working with Linux for years, and I just got my LPI Level 2
>cert, but I don't want to treat that like MCSE's often do (i.e.
>bragging about the cert without really knowing how good, or poor, they
>are).
>
>Thanks in advance for your advice!
>
>Jesse Adelman
>http://resume.boldandbusted.com/
>
>=====
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>Jesse Adelman
>http://www.boldandbusted.com/ (just resume now)
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