[ale] Linux Server Basics Trainer requested by CNN

[Chris Fowler]

On 02/05/2014 04:09 PM, Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>
> Personally I don't think there's anything evil about bringing MS 
> Admins from the dark side into the light.  Quite the contrary. Once 
> upon a time I was a lowly DOS user :-)
>

Same here.  As a young teenager I played on my mentor's (a neighbor that 
worked for Westinghouse in IT) state of the art 286 computer. Obviously 
it was loaded with DOS.  I eventually got my own PC (my parents paid 
mucho deniro for it).  I told him I was bored with DOS and was thinking 
of doing something else. He said I had hardly touched the technology.  
UNIX keeps me interested.  :)
>
> The question in my mind is how much expertise one can really develop 
> in just 3 months.   Hopefully CNN is actually staffing some 
> experienced Linux admins and are just trying to jump start the rest of 
> the staff enough to avoid bothering the more experienced admins with 
> mundane questions like: "How do I add this user?"
>

You can not.  Only experience can.  We are jumping to conclusions. It 
may be possible that CNN has seasoned UNIX/Linux IT staff, but those 
folks are too busy and too $$$ to train others how to do stuff.  I may 
be that the others are not going to be full-time Linux admins, but pick 
up projects when the real gurus get busy.   If I wanted to expand the 
experience of IT staff I think that I would have created the same plan.  
Sometimes you deal with workers that have pigeon-holed their self into 
one job.  Maybe a Windows System Admin only type guy/gal.  Sometimes a 
trainer can get them to do a bit more.   Taking someone that has almost 
no knowledge of Linux and then railroading them in one week is a recipe 
for disaster. Especially if they are no longer 18 years old.  Over 3 
months with a trainer and a mentor would be an excellent plan.

> In larger shops I've been in we had a mix of seasoned admins and 
> junior admins and I for one enjoyed seeing the latter progress over time.
>

This may be the same at CNN.

Some of you folks have looked at their post and automatically attacked 
it because you only saw negative things.  Maybe their is a positive side 
to their request?   Crap!  To be the optimist is an unlikely road for me 
to take....

Chris
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