I concur, but feel that you do not adequately stress the importance of curiosity.
I suggest that a "very strong innate curiosity" is insufficient. A good systems programmer must have a virtually insatiable curiosity. I sometimes wonder whether any wholly sane individual would seek to go into the field of systems programming. This leads me into my second point. I believe that a good systems programmer must have the ability to maintain a well-ordered and logical mindset. Some 20 years ago an article in Computerworld noted that high-level software engineers had the second highest rate of nervous breakdowns after, yes, you guessed it, air traffic controllers. I tend to believe that the study was reasonably accurate. Many of my friends have left the field over the years, not for lack of work, but due to burnout, stress, and in some cases nervous breakdowns. John P Baker Heath Springs, SC > I partially disagree -- a good sysprog needs four legs, not just the > three you > mentioned. The fourth leg is a very strong innate curiousity. Without > that, > you may spend a lot of money, time and patience on someone unwilling to > open the books, manuals, or even videos in order to learn the craft. > > I have seen several such "sysprog-wannabe" employees in my day and have > learned not to waste much of my time or energy on them. > > I suspect that many of the rest of you have noticed that over the > years. > (Maybe you are just too polite to mention it here? Seems somewhat > unlikely > given the tone of the list of late.) > > -- > Tom Schmidt > Madison, WI > (I'm not really a curmudgeon nor have I ever played one on TV.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
