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So was thinking of specialising in network programming final uni year, just what will I be doing?

I was gonna do software development, It does excite me but I do love using protocols to sing to servers, is network programming anything like building ircbots that sort of thing? why is it so hard? people say its boring and I know that thats subjective but most people arent fans of trainspotting for example
From what I was told by others, network programmers write more scripts than applications. If you like scripting, then go for it. You will never know if you like it if you don't try it though.
can someone give me a scripting challange
I'm just going to throw this out there devon:

Make a new weapon or gametype or something in Hedgewars!!! http://www.hedgewars.org/

Scripting is Lua.
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is that a real thing? or is super hard hard??
closed account (z05DSL3A)
devonrevenge wrote:
So was thinking of specialising in network programming final uni year, just what will I be doing?
It strikes me a little odd that you are thinking of specialising in something and you don't know what it is.


edit:
PS. You may find embedded and real-time systems interesting.
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Okay so what kinda scripts could I write for what purpose to gives me an idea of the kind of thing a network admin does.

EDIT: Very funny you cheeky monkeys you.
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Network admins don't really do any programming...
what do they do then? engineering? it would be helpful if you told me what they do when they are doing something, plus what do you do if you study network programming at university?

or are you going to be talking in fancy pants 'stick it up your bum' riddles

someone could have submitted more knowledge.
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devonrevenge wrote:
what do they do then? engineering? it would be helpful if you told me what they do when they are doing something, plus what do you do if you study network programming at university?

or are you going to be talking in fancy pants 'stick it up your bum' riddles

someone could have submitted more knowledge.

It is your education, it should be up to you to find out what it is and not others. We can't take the classes for you and if you end up getting it and hating it, it wouldn't be our fault. There was this wonderful search engine created years ago that everyone seems to overlook, named Google. In five seconds I found a wiki page that covered network administrators. You have to learn to be self-reliant when you have questions rather than waiting on someone else to tell you. Self-reliance is kind of a big quality programmers are expected to have (pretty sure it is in other jobs too).

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_administrator
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I actually wanted a friendly chat about it.
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Network admins don't really do any real programming...

Fixed that a little. I know you're speaking relatively here, but a network admin who can't automate their task load isn't qualified for the job.

@OP: Well, I had quite a rant here that was swallowed up when I pressed backspace thinking that the text box had focus. The important part is this: Learn Nagios, if you want to be a capable network admin and you want to show off your programming ability then this is the route to take.

As for why it's so hard; it's simple, you are not given "Development Time". There are things that have to be done no matter how important your "pet project" is. It doesn't matter to the head of department 'X' how much better off the company will be once you finish your program. One of their lemmings has deleted the same folder full of contract and insurance information off of the server for the third time this week and the rest of their department cannot function without it so you need to restore the data from the back up tape that you just dropped off in the bank security deposit box. Yet you're not allowed to take delete permissions away from this special little snowflake because in some scenario that comes up less once a year it would make their job marginally more difficult and it was "so easy for you to put the data back".</rant>
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Eh speaking as someone who works in this industry and talks with people in the industry often, Nagios is not used nearly as much as it was. There are much better, and easier, alternatives out there now.

If you wanna be a network admin, pay attention in your CS network courses so you understand the theory behind networks. Then go get an entry level certification, of which there are many. I think all the major players in the network world have a certification path. The knowledge is mostly transferable, except for some vendor-specific protocols (looking at Cisco). It's a tough thing to get practice in without actually working in the industry though. So make sure you know all the main protocols pretty well, and get lots of Linux practice.
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The app I forgot to mention when I retyped my post was Citrix XenApp. This is a pretty popular virtualization tool with medium to large (population wise) companies that are trying to either save money by buying slim clients for their end users, provide a BYOD solution for people who would rather do so and\or both. It does funny things legal-ieize wise with EULA's on some products but once you're past that it's a pretty useful tool to know. It's also frustrating as heck for people who never bothered to sit down and learn it so if you come in knowing what is what you'll end up looking pretty good.

I'm a Systems Administrator so I'll defer to ResidentBiscuit for most of his post since my knowledge of networking stuff is what I learned in school, what I learned in my very brief stint as an IBEW apprentice and my peripheral observations. But I would still encourage you to learn Nagios because it will teach you the concepts of what network monitoring software does, it has name recognition for your resume and you can't beat the price.
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Zenoss :)

Nagios + so much more. Costs same as Nagios :)
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Is it a path to network programming or network administration? Which are you interested in, I don't think they are the same thing.
Well "Network Programming" isn't a career, it's more of an aspect one so far as I know. Now a programming team might have a person they dedicate to the networking aspect of the project but that's not quite the same thing.
Yeah. I know that there is a focus at my school on Networks, by I think it might be more focused on the hardware aspect.

I was thinking that as a network programmer you might work on the server side of web applications, multi-player video games, online conference tools or teamwork tools, or maybe even writing lower level software for special devices.

Then again I guess a lot of people who focus on Networks probably end up working as Network admins.
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