How to encourage Windows administrators to pick up scripting?
- by icelava
When I worked as an administrator in my first job, I was frustrated that our administration processes with Windows servers were a series of point-and-clicks; we could never match the level of efficiency with the Unix servers which had a group of shell scripts to automate a lot of the work. I soon read about WSH and ADSI and wasted no time learning just how much automation I was able to achieve with scripting.
There was a huge problem though - almost none of my Windows colleagues were really interested in learning scripting. They seemed happy with the manually mouse-clicking chores and were never excited at the prospect of using scripts to do the work on their behalf. I struggled to convince them to pick up scripting skills despite the evident increases in efficiency. I left that job in pursuit of a full-time software development career thereafter.
Almost a decade on working in various environments and different customers, I still encounter Windows administrators mainly possessing this general "mood" where they would avoid scripting as much as possible. Despite the increasing level of accessibility Windows server technologies are opening up for scripting and automation. I am almost certain the majority of administrators are administrators precisely because they absolutely hate performing any kind of programming duties. What are some means to encourage and motivate administrators that scripting can really help them in the long run?
