Python for Networking Engineers

One of my readers sent me a simple question: “Do you plan to have a Python for Networking Engineers webinar?

Short answer: no immediate plans.

Here are just a few reasons:

His next question:

Do you think there is a need for python for network automation, or the Ansible will resolve this issue, without being involved directly with a programming language?

You can get a lot of things done with Ansible or other tools. However, these tools (including Ansible) are not general-purpose programming languages, and at least Ansible sucks at data munging and manipulation.

There will always be need for more sophisticated glue, and a programming language (Python, for example) will always be needed to provide it. However, as explained above, I don't necessarily believe in writing that code myself. Well, I would probably do it as a proof-of-concept, but would try to get a programmer fluent in Python to (re)do before the code gets anywhere near a real-life project.

2 comments:

  1. +1 for Kirk Byers course! There's also a community of people around to try and help you through any problems you encounter, saved my bacon a few times for sure.
  2. Yes, I agree that programming should not be one of the must-have skills of a network engineer.
    And beginning with release 2016.11.0 (Carbon): https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/releases/2016.11.0.html#network-automation-napalm, SaltStack provides all the necessary tools for network engineers, without requiring any software development knowledge.
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