> It very much is about the terms. 20-25 years ago a sysadmin was expected to be able to fix C bugs, and have skills not that far removed from programming in assembly (i.e., sendmail.cf files :-).
I would say, 25 years later, the need to fix C bugs is far less relevant. That said, I'd say around 50% of the system administrators I've worked since moving into the Unix world know C and can at least read the source code of the operating system they're supporting. Even if there's not much need to write anything or even submit bugfixes anymore. Also, the number of unix admins I know who don't know a scripting language well enough to write a reasonably-sized, useful tool is vanishingly small, and those few have been very solid with some other technology(network, storage, etc.) and valuable anyway.
"System Administrator" is a broad term, just like "Developer." I'm not sure google has either, right? If we're going by fancy titles, Google has "Software Engineers." I'm not going to criticize Google's culture but the fact is if I say "Software Developer" you know what I'm talking about and from context should be able to tell the difference between Linus Torvalds and a guy who creates wordpress sites for his friends.
I would say, 25 years later, the need to fix C bugs is far less relevant. That said, I'd say around 50% of the system administrators I've worked since moving into the Unix world know C and can at least read the source code of the operating system they're supporting. Even if there's not much need to write anything or even submit bugfixes anymore. Also, the number of unix admins I know who don't know a scripting language well enough to write a reasonably-sized, useful tool is vanishingly small, and those few have been very solid with some other technology(network, storage, etc.) and valuable anyway.
"System Administrator" is a broad term, just like "Developer." I'm not sure google has either, right? If we're going by fancy titles, Google has "Software Engineers." I'm not going to criticize Google's culture but the fact is if I say "Software Developer" you know what I'm talking about and from context should be able to tell the difference between Linus Torvalds and a guy who creates wordpress sites for his friends.