Do networkers need c++

Ungadunga911

Just wondering if networkers need c++. I am currently in my second class of c++ and i can honestly say that i have no desire to find a job that has anything to do with programming, its just something i hate and dread doing every second im in the class.

networker050184

Outside of some really niche role no you won't need that. It's a good idea to have some kind of scripting skills though. It's becoming a much more sought after skill in networking roles.

Kalissie

I would say Python would be more relevant for networking. because of it's usage for automation. apart from that JavaScript and PHP are my best friends.

DatabaseHead

Agreed, I would make it a priority to learn a scripting language.

Mooseboost

I cannot think of many networking positions that involve heavy development with C++ outside some hybrid DevOps roles. Scripting may help you out with automation, so I would recommend that but I wouldn't worry about anything deeper than that.

LeBroke

Python is becoming heavily used now for network automation.

Ansible is used quite a bit too. Maybe not so much with Cisco (even though it has modules for that), but quite a bit with other providers like F5 that have an API to run against but little ability to script things.

I don't know any DevOps roles that require C++. Golang, maybe, but C/C++ is pretty rare. It's almost entirely Bash/Python/Ruby/Golang in about this order of popularity.

ccie14023

LeBroke wrote: »

Ansible is used quite a bit too. Maybe not so much with Cisco

Well, I would take exception to that, a lot of customers are considering or using Ansible to automate Cisco devices, and as you point out we have modules for it. See, for example:

https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/cvd-config-templates/tree/master/campus-lan-layer-2-access/ansible

Anyways, with regard to C++, the others on the thread are correct, there is almost no use for it. However, you can learn quite a few important lessons from studying it. General programming skills, an understanding of object-oriented programming, etc. Take what you can even if it isn't 100% relevant!

iBrokeIT

Do you ever post anything else beside whines about your university education and course work? It's been pointed out by multiple people that you need to stop looking at your course work through such a small lens of immediate training for a single and simple role. One day you may mature and be able to look at the bigger picture but I guess that's not today.

The purpose of teaching you C++ is to learn the fundamental tenants of programming such variables, loops, functions, ect so that you can at least read and edit simple scripts. Just this week our Network Engineer needed to edit a script to remove a module from Cisco AnyConnect, add the new module and a few other tasks. That is just one small example.

You would not be hired at my company without the ability to read/edit scripts at a minimum. The demand to automate is only going to grow.