Posts made by RamblingBiped

@tonyshowoff Haha! I'm an opportunist! I posted here first if that's any consolation...

@thecreativeone91 I agree... I've got an AS in CS from a community college and pretty much all of my IT/CS courses were a joke. The curriculum was outdated and less than useful. On the flipside, I breezed through the courses relatively easily. The affordability of this degree program and my familiarity with a lot of the IT-related curriculum are a bonus. Ideally I will be able to breeze through the Network+ course and most of the Security+. Hopefully the courses centered on development will just give me a lot of time excuses to create code using the language(s) and quickly build a proficiency.

@StrongBad Okay, so maybe I should have said QUICKLY grasp the fundamentals AND build a solid proficiency with Java.

Relative to Java is Eclipse the preferred IDE I should start working with, or is there something better? I've bounced around a little with an intro to java course on udemy.com a few weeks ago and it seems like that and other courses always have you install Eclipse.

@scottalanmiller I'm actually working on learning and integrating Ansible into our current infrastructure at work. I am already loving how easy it is to push a system build and maintain packages with it. The YAML and Jinja2 syntax are pretty straitforward and relatively easy to understand too.

As far as Ruby goes I am fortunate to have several experience engineers and developers here on staff that work regularly with Ruby as a resource. We also have a library with numerous books/resources for learning Ruby and Rails. I chose to learn the basics of Python first, because I had the extra time and we currently have nobody with a significant amount of experience with it on staff.

@StrongBad Yeah, it is more of an "IT Degree" with a focus on Software Development. Fortunately I had a lot of transfer credits that took care of all of the boring entry level courses; so I get to jump right into the better courses on the list. I'm fully expecting to have to do a lot of the more relevant work and experience outside of the program too. I'm mainly hoping to grasp Java fundamentals and fill in any holes in my current general IT experience that I might have by going through the Network+ and Security+ courses. I'm actually looking forward to the Project+ course too. Out of all the certifications I think that might prove to be the most useful.

School and degree program is pretty much set in stone. It is super flexible on time, affordable, and should work well with my current workload. I know the curriculum (as far as development goes) is centered around Java specifically. I'm kind of looking at what I need to do personally, aside from what is included in the degree, to round out my studies. As a developer what other tools should I seek out?

If I understand things correctly, most application development is web-based now. Working with languages like Python/Ruby and frameworks to quickly develop applications that are OS-independent. I have a feeling that I will not get a lot of direct experience in these technologies with a lot of the coursework that is outlined in the degree program. Any suggestions on what to supplement it with, and what resources to use to educate myself and gain experience with the suggested material.

I've decided to go back to school and finally finish an Undergraduate's degree. I've been accepted to WGU's College of Information Technology and plan on getting their B.S. in Software Development. The curriculum will include the Network+, Security+, Project+, Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 7 Programmer, and Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 7 Programmer certifications. While I could really care less about the certifications, it is a nice add-on at no additional cost. I'm mostly doing this out of personal interest and to fill in any holes that might exist in my experience; but I also believe it will be directly beneficial in my current position and future prospects. I like the idea of building a DevOps-like skillset and being able to do both development and infrastructure management.

I'm currently working as a SysAdmin for a small (but growing) engineering firm. We get the opportunity to work on a lot of really interesting projects for a wide range of clientele. (Mechanical/Electrical/Software Engineering working with robotics, wireless proximity detection systems, high speed cameras, etc...) Aside from managing the infrastructure I hope to have the opportunity to directly contribute to some of the future projects that involve software development. I've already been given the opportunity to build a small one-off tool in BASH that replaced an older slightly dated piece of software that was being used for managing an aspect of an ongoing project. I really enjoyed the work and it was part of what pushed me to go ahead and enroll for the WGU program.

I enjoy working with BASH and use if fairly regularly for writing scripts. I also have a little experience working with Python. I'll be picking up Java from my future studies, and I plan on adding in Ruby/Rails as I find time.

What else would you recommend that might be helpful when moving forward with courses that are specific to programming/development? Thoughts on the curriculum? How about additional skills to look into picking up along the way for career development? Depending on how these courses go I may move more toward the software development side of things and less toward systems administration in the future. Are there any other things I should be doing now or in the near future that might be beneficial?

(I thought about putting this in the Careers forum, but thought this might be slightly more relevant home. If I'm wrong please feel free to move it)

TL;DR: I'm going back to school for software development and I am looking for informed criticism of the degree program I've chosen, advice on other skills to look into for career development, and/or any other helpful criticism/commentary.

It amuses me that I noticed the indicator on my chrome tab, switched back to the site because of it, and this thread was on the top of the list that triggered the new notification.

fix't! Thanks!

I apologize, I didn't make it clear that this is for installing to desktop systems. I'm trying to take a lightweight base server install and do post installation customization via Ansible. As far as deploying all the necessary packages after installation goes, I've got the Ansible part of the equation working fine. After I've got the server version installed I use Ansible to install the ubuntu-desktop package, libre-office, and everything else that will be needed.

I have read that baremetal deployment is possible using Ansible, but I haven't really explored it much. What I did see involved pairing it with Cobbler. I don't feel my needs necessitate a deployment of Cobbler. We're a relatively small organization (just under 50 employees) and I would rather have something I could install via usb and customize the build using Ansible. This has led me to pursue the option of using preseed and kickstart configuration files.

I'm not necessarily opposed to using 15.04, I've just always stuck with the LTS releases for deployment.

On a similar note, I can't even (literally) upload or change the default picture for my profile.

I'm curious if anyone has a relatively clear-cut and dry resource for the process of creating a preseed and kickstart configuration file for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

I am trying to put together an unattended installer for a USB thumb drive that will allow me to do a base install of Ubuntu Server. I don't really do these builds with great enough frequency to justify spending the time on putting together a Cobbler server, but I do stand to save a significant chunk of time by automating the installation. I've already got the build out process setup in Ansible, but this will allow me to RONCO the whole thing from start to finish.

I've tried following a couple of tutorials I found via google, but things just aren't working as expected. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!