Random & Casual Poll: What abt. Web Services Should You Know?

[Cockerill, Alan]

You raise an interesting side issue John – ‘ambient knowledge’. I know my understanding and ability to problem solve is greatly improved by some understanding of the nuts and bolts of TCP/IP. I remember the light going on playing with ARP and telneting to a mail server and saying HELO.  I can’t imagine not knowing about dnslookup, ping, traceroute, whois but they’re not things I directly use every day. I’m not sure they’re essential to a web programmer – it’s hard for me to imagine coming in as a new graduate right now.
I’ve often seen library tech jobs advertised on the interwebs where I’ve thought any applicant that would meet these could walk on water. I think we’re building our own now: New Graduate must have 10 years industry experience ;-) Linux, Windows sys admin, dba in oracle, SQLserver, high level abilities in Java, PERL, Python, Ruby, ASP, C#, machine code, Cisco, Red Hat and Microsoft certified network engineer, barista skills and must clean windows.

Alan Cockerill
Library Technologies Coordinator
Library & Information Services
James Cook University PO Box 6811 CAIRNS QLD 4870 AUSTRALIA
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From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of John Creech
Sent: Thursday, 13 September 2012 2:41 AM
To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [WEB4LIB] Random & Casual Poll: What abt. Web Services Should You Know?


Network topology.  Many people do not grok how many hops a click on a library web site takes before the full text is delivered to the patron, how many servers it passes through in multiple locations around the U.S. or internationally.


John

>>> Rosalyn Metz <rosalynmetz at GMAIL.COM> 9/12/2012 6:41 AM >>>
Communication. Communication. Communication. I think as long as you have an aptitude to learn a new technology, you can put your mind to it. The hard part is being able to communicate what it is that you're going to be doing.



For example, I want to build an application that is going to accomplish a particular task for my user. In the end, the user doesn't really want to know what language I build it in. What the user wants to know is whether or not my application is going to have this feature or that feature. If I can't communicate with a user in order to discover what it is they want and what I can do to deliver it, the number of programming languages, web tools, etc. that I know will be completely useless.




On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 4:12 PM, Michael Schofield <mschofield at nova.edu<mailto:mschofield at nova.edu>> wrote:
Hi everyone,

Every so often in the library blogosophere I see posts dedicated to whether librarians should know how to code. The answer I usually give is awful - something like, “Um. Probably.” Anyway, since you all work with the web and/or library systems, I’m curious about your wizened answers. Here’s the scenario: if a LIS student intending to work in web services (or w/e) asked your advice, what code / platforms / other skills would you recommend for success?

I’ll compile and share the results in a couple of weeks.

All the best,

Michael Schofield(@nova.edu<http://nova.edu>) | Web Services Librarian
Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center

Hi! Hit me up any time, but I’d really appreciate it if you report broken links, bugs, your meeting minutes, or request an awesome web app over on the Library Web Services<http://staff.library.nova.edu/pm> site.


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