I would be very interested in scientific studies that explain how people become lousy sysadmins. Any pointers?
They become MS-Windows admins, and don't escape. Although a decade old, the following study linked illustrates the problem. "In the survey, Linux admin salaries were slightly higher than Windows admins, with Linux at $71,400 per admin, and Windows at $68,500 per admin. But Linux admins took care of an average of 44 servers and Windows admins an average of 10. So the salary per processing unit was Linux, $12,010, and Windows, $52,060." (quote from http://www.zdnet.com/news/linux-tco-edge-lower-labor-costs/297046, linked in my earlier post)/ http://www.evanbauer.com/essays/LinuxTCO.pdf The issue is that MS-Windows servers break more often, are harder to fix, and actually are pretty obtuse when it comes to learning-whilst-doing. If you want to put a sysadmin in a life where they're constantly admin-ing a handful of boxes with no end of errors and downtime, give then a few MS-Windows webservers to look after. If only Dante Alighieri had been around in contemporary times. There would have been a special level of hell where a person spent eternity as a MS-Windows server sysadmin. A modern trial of Sisyphus, if you like. -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), MBA, GCertPM mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt