I have read a little of this BS thread. 1) I have been maintaining a network for 12 years. 2) I am and have been since Feb 1965 a programmer. Anyone who bashes either group has a problem. First, at one time programmers knew bits, bytes, opcodes, machine codes etc. I have written close to thirty languages and probably could write most of them now with a couple hours to browse a manual. I have done everything from punchdowns and crimping connectors to routing and ACL's. Sure there is a lot I do not know. But most of what academia has turned out in the last twenty years is people who know the left half of the byte but not the right. Today they don't even have an idea what happens. I am not sure some of them know that a computer runs on electricity. And it is nearly as bad in Networking as it is in Programming, Data Base, etc. We are building "experts" who have learned more and more about less and less till they know everything about nothing. You need six of them to plug in a router. Somewhere we need some of them to get out of their little silo, find out that there is a world out there and learn what the other guy does. When that happens the finger pointing that was just done here will not happen. Ralph Brandt