[Linux-aus] Become C programmer

[James Cameron]

If you've been working as a Linux systems administrator, then you have
been using C programs extensively, and are familiar with their primary
interfaces; loading, running, stdin, stdout, stderr, filesystems, sockets,
and interprocess communication.

You can deepen this, using tools such as the source code, gdb, strace,
valgrind, and tcpdump.  Use them on top of how you use the programs.

You can widen this by submitting patches to packages that use C, and
if I may, I'll put up my hand here to say that the antique pptp and
pptpd projects would welcome some attention; remarkably they are still
used in some situations despite their terrible security; i.e. exactly
the situations where convenience and terrible security are a desired
feature because of in-country regulations.

Build a pattern of successful contribution to C-based projects or
packages, and you can put it down as professional experience that an
interviewer or panel should pay attention to.  That nobody paid for
that experience is irrelevant.

This pattern in general has worked for me.  It takes effort to
perform, and that effort too can be visible in an administrative or
portfolio sense.  A summary of the ideas can be found in
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html (regardless of what
you or others may think of the author's other works).

If you'd like to enjoy the coding even more, the Netrek game also
needs attention.  ;-)  Needs to scale up to today's display resolutions.

On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 05:49:45PM +1000, Saber Sayeed via linux-aus wrote:
> Just wondering what's the right/easiest way to get a C programming job. I
> have been working as a linux administrator. I have good understanding of the
> language and how it interacts with the OS. However, I don't have any
> professional experience. Any suggestions?
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