[ILUG] Suggestions for Additional Material for Linux Sys Admin Course - LAMP?

[Kae Verens]

Cormac McClean wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks to all who responded with suggestions for additional material 
> for the Linux Sys Admin course. It would appear that the PHP/MySQL 
> suggestion is not high on the list of priorities.
>
> From the point of view of scripting, I took a different tack this year 
> in that I focused exclusively on shell scripting. In previous years I 
> have included either perl or python as the scripting language, but 
> students object to "yet another programming language", as they already 
> learn Java and/or C++ and possibly other programming languages (such 
> as assembly) in their other subjects. I reverted to shell scripting 
> this year because it is tied in closely to the shell commands they are 
> learning and they don't feel like they are being forced to learn 
> another programming language. Having said that, they find it very 
> difficult and/or hate it, judging on the attempts to scripting 
> questions in their practical assessments.
>
> What would the general view be on this issue? Shell script versus 
> perl/python?
my personal opinion is that Perl would be more important than Bash, as 
Perl can then also be easily used for CGI if the sysadmin decides to go 
in that direction.

On the "yet another programming language" question, it is my opinion 
that Perl should be taught in place of one or the other of Java and C++. 
C++ (and C, even-more-so) is a great language for learning how computer 
languages work, but not all computer professionals will go on to use it 
in their later lives. Java, while being supposedly portable, is probably 
past its sell-by-date, and should be replaced with something else (PHP, 
anyone ;-) /me ducks the flames). Perl, though, is such a useful "fire 
and forget" language that it should be taught to all computer programmers.

 From the sysadmin's point of view, Perl can be used to handle just 
about anything that needs handling.

Kae