But my point is that each person who is capable to do so generally chooses their life's work, after working in and trying out several capacities, and this is extremely common in IT environments where a person could have cycled through programming, system admin, dba, networking, security, etc. For me, I prefer networking, and even a substantial raise would not get me to design and write computer programs again. Life is short, networking professionals generally are in high demand, and are in networking because they like it. Yes Perl scripting may become a temporary, necessary evil at some point, but if the subject of coding comes up, many will move on. -----Original Message----- From: Randy Bush [mailto:randy@psg.com] Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 6:23 PM To: Holmes,David A Cc: North American Network Operators' Group Subject: Re: Programmers with network engineering skills programming is not being able to write a hundred lines of unreadable perl. a real programmer can be productive in networking tools in a matter of a month or two. i have seen it multiple times. a networker can become a useful real progammer in a year or three. randy This communication, together with any attachments or embedded links, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is confidential or legally protected. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, disclosure, copying, dissemination, distribution or use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail message and delete the original and all copies of the communication, along with any attachments or embedded links, from your system.