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That's why computer science isn't a real science. People don't learn history.
Imagine if nobody in physics had heard of Newton.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Newton who?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I simply have to assume you're joking ???
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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You assume correctly!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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lw@zi wrote: Mid 1950s, when my parents were born.
When my parents were married...
Show what a diverse bunch we are.
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Tim Carmichael wrote: When my parents were married...
Mine too; going to their 60th anniversary party later this year.
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A bit about networking?
Well, obviously I should as it was required of me today, but in general...
My assignment was simple enough, we wanted to use RabbitMQ and I was the one who should get it to work. No problem, I installed Erlang and RabbitMQ, read some tutorials, wrote some client C# code, and I was able to sent to, and receive from, the RabbitMQ queue.
Now here's the thing, my team lead then asked me what protocol did it use, should we use SSL/TLS, and how do we set it up?
The hell should I know! I write code, I don't configure servers, create certificates, have them signed, etc.
Or should I know? Common knowledge, or stuff left to sysadmins?
I'm interested in opinions.
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Sander Rossel wrote: Or should I know? Common knowledge, or stuff left to sysadmins?
If I need to know something, I learn it, otherwise I leave it to the experts.
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R. Giskard Reventlov wrote: If I need to know something, I learn it, otherwise I leave it to the experts.
You do realise that that's what all the experts say too?
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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That's the trouble with all you young whippersnappers with your fancy black box components! In my day if you wanted to set up a network messager you had to do everything yourself including poking packets down the cable with a sharpened stick! Well, ok, not quite. But I do think that some of the modern packages obscure what's going on just a little too much. It certainly can't hurt to know a little something about protocols and SSL and all that nuts and bolts stuff if only to spot when the sysadmin has finally cracked and started storing servers in his "Tardis"!
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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Agreed to a certain degree
I know what's going on (basically encrypted or plain text communication), but I can't set it up. For the code it matters little though, just a little extra configuration.
It's the same with LINQ to SQL/Entities, some programmers just don't understand that they're really talking to a database and that it has certain implications, after all "it's just C#, right?"
We have a few sysadmins in the company and a few more people who know a thing or two about networks.
If something doesn't work I go to them for help
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9082365 wrote: In my day if you wanted to set up a network messager you had to do everything yourself including poking packets down the cable with a sharpened stick!
Yes, and while doing so make sure the Token-Ring network token doesn't drop out.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Sander Rossel wrote: should I know?
Probably not required, as it has nothing to do with your part of the problem, but it sounds like you are about to get an introduction anyway! More knowledge is a cool thing! Have fun with it!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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kmoorevs wrote: but it sounds like you are about to get an introduction anyway Not really, I can't really figure it all out AND stay within budget. Everything is running on one server, so TLS isn't a requirement anyway
I had my introduction a few weeks ago with a WCF SOAP service. Apparently SOAP requires TLS (and far worse, XML!)
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SOAP shudder
Had to deal with it in iOS environment. Talk about pushing the envelope...
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Ri_ wrote: SOAP shudder
+1
Eric
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Sander Rossel wrote:
Apparently SOAP requires TLS (and far worse, XML!)
SOAP does not require TLS, though it is usually a good idea to use it and many applications require it. There are far worse things to deal with than XML (like ASN.1) and besides, you usually are usually not directly dealing directly with the XML but letting a framework marshall between your business objects and XML, though in the case of WCF, the framework abstraction may be more complicated than the XML.
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You can make a WCF Service speak JSON
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If there is someone who is good at it already on the team, then you probably needn't learn it.
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Sander Rossel wrote: should we use SSL/TLS
thats a business requirement - not a technical requirement along the lines of "what does it take to get RabbitMQ working ?" (answer as you've already found out, 'not much')
you show me the requirements, I'll show you the process/tech
It is handy to know a little bit I guess, but, if its a business requirement then you're probably going to have an architect &/or security geek specify wether you need SSL/TLS
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You are describing yourself as a developer but really asking an architectural question (or really describing an architectural question that your team lead asked of you).
Strictly speaking, as a developer, you've probably already done your job... but for career purposes, it would be good to know if security is required and whether or not to use TLS/SSL or something else. If so, it should be parlayed into a functional requirement and funded/time budgeted as such. This is likely a feature creep item.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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In the long term of a career, it makes sense to have some understanding of a wide variety of things. The more diverse things we know about, the easier it is to learn new things -- after a point the "new" things often relate to things we already know, so there is not as much to learn.
What to learn and how deeply? As others have said, that's a personal choice.
I learn things I need to know and things I want to know. When I need to know something I evaluate if I'm going to use it again, and if I foresee a future, I dig deeper than what is needed to do the job.
For things that interest me? I dig as deep as I have interest.
It's a guessing game -- I've invested many hours into topics that I thought had a future (but didn't), and skipped others that would have taken my career in a different direction. But overall things have worked out so I have no real complaints.
The side effect is that I'm pretty good at Trivial Pursuit.
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As always, yes and no...
Reading the documentation shows you (at the very beginning), that it supports TLS/SSL...
It also tells you, that "All protocols supported by the broker are TCP-based."...
(RabbitMQ - Networking and RabbitMQ[^])
So you should not know BEFORE, but definitely should AFTER...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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The simple answer is yes. When I was developing an authentication based application using Microsoft's Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) I needed a deep understanding if ADFS and authentication in order to fully grasp how it worked so I could implement the required functionality. I was also then required to provide support to customers in setting up their own authentication environments and so needed to further understand LDAP, Office365, SAML etc.
As a web developer it is assumed that you have a pretty good grasp of how the moving parts work e.g. DNS, IP addresses, HTTP etc. Your code needs to run on some form of infrastructure, so the better you understand that infrastructure the better.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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Good points, but where do you draw the line?
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