Starting a new job is always a challenge. It’s one thing to do an internal transfer within a company, like I did when moving from Technical Marketing Engineer to Product Management. I even stayed in the same team. But moving to a new company and new role is overwhelming and risky. I experienced this when […]
Tag: programmability
Stay away from OOP
I’ve been revising my Cisco Live session on IOS XE programmability, and it’s made me think about programming in general, and a particular idea I’ve been embarrassed to admit I loathe: Object Oriented Programming. Some context: I started programming on the Apple II+ in BASIC, which shows my age. Back then programs were input with […]
CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure
There were quite a few big announcements at Cisco Live this year. One of the big ones was the overhaul of the certification program. A number of new certifications were introduced (such as the DevNet CCNA/CCNP), and the existing ones were overhauled. I wanted to do a post about this because I was involved with […]
I am not a coder!
I recently replied to a comment that I think warrants a full blog post. I’ve been here at Cisco working on programmability for a few years. Brian Turner wrote in to say, essentially: Hang on! I became a network engineer precisely because I don’t want to be a coder! I tried programming and hated it! […]
Do we hate network engineers?
I was doing well on the blog for a few months but lately fell behind. With (now) 12 people reporting to me, and three major areas of responsibility (SD-Access, Assurance, and Programmability), it’s not easy to find time to write up a blog post. I have about five drafts needing work but I cannot seem […]
Cisco IOS XE Programmability Book
In a previous post I had mentioned I co-authored a book on IOS XE Programmability with some colleagues of mine. For those who are interested, the book is available here. The book is not a comprehensive how-to, but a summary of the IOS XE features along with a few samples. It should provide a good […]
On Being a Dinosaur
An old networking friend whom I mentored for his CCIE a long time ago wrote me an email: I’ve been a CCIE for 10 years now, he said, and I’m feeling like a dinosaur. Everyone wants people who know AWS and automation and they don’t want old-school CLI guys. It takes me back to a […]
Cisco Live US 2018
Cisco Live Orlando has wrapped up, at least for me, and I can relax until Cisco Live Europe in January. I never realized how much work goes into Cisco Live until I became a TME. Building labs, working on slides, preparing demos, and arranging customer meetings is a months-long process and always a scramble at […]
Book Sprint
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] I’m somewhat recovered from an exhausting week. I spent last week with a team of 10 others locked up in building 4 at Cisco writing a book using the book sprint methodology. Several of the TMEs who report to me got together and wrote a book on Software-Defined Access earlier […]
Where I’ve been, and what a TME is
Jesse, a recent commentor, asked why I haven’t been posting much lately. In fact, my last post was August of 2017. Well, there are several reasons I don’t post much these days. In part, I’m not convinced anyone is reading. It’s nice to see a comment now and again to realize it’s not just spambots […]