As someone who self-identifies as both a systems guy and a programmer, I'm continuously surprised by how many sysadmins don't read any C code and by how many programmers can't effectively configure Apache, to give two examples. I really don't think I'd be as effective at my job as I am if I didn't have both backgrounds, didn't do both regularly, and haven't held positions where I'm expected to do both. Often times, it becomes institutionalized to have the developers "throw their finished products over the wall" to the systems team. I've found this doesn't result in a good environment, rarely do the programmers know about the deployment environment, and systems people don't get a chance to provide input on issues of scalability and maintenance.
One guy who was an early mentor of mine in systems work actually hates doing it, and prefers to program exclusively. I didn't know this when I was under him, I credited him with helping me get to where I am today but he'll hear none of it.
I do think it's true that is is rare to find people who do work effectively in both domains, or even like to. There is a sort of closed mindedness on each side toward the other -- come on guys, we're all engineers! I've had technical and non-technical people alike be surprised at where I can contribute (a memorable one is someone in the accounting department at an old job who was forced to admin a machine back in the day being surprised that I could code, and more recent one is someone being surprised that I was able to successfully contribute to dealing with IE layout issues -- in both cases it's been like "but you're a systems guy, you can't do X", because they've only ever known me to be in that role "officially").
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As someone who self-identifies as both a systems guy and a programmer, I'm continuously surprised by how many sysadmins don't read any C code and by how many programmers can't effectively configure Apache, to give two examples. I really don't think I'd be as effective at my job as I am if I didn't have both backgrounds, didn't do both regularly, and haven't held positions where I'm expected to do both. Often times, it becomes institutionalized to have the developers "throw their finished products over the wall" to the systems team. I've found this doesn't result in a good environment, rarely do the programmers know about the deployment environment, and systems people don't get a chance to provide input on issues of scalability and maintenance.
One guy who was an early mentor of mine in systems work actually hates doing it, and prefers to program exclusively. I didn't know this when I was under him, I credited him with helping me get to where I am today but he'll hear none of it.
I do think it's true that is is rare to find people who do work effectively in both domains, or even like to. There is a sort of closed mindedness on each side toward the other -- come on guys, we're all engineers! I've had technical and non-technical people alike be surprised at where I can contribute (a memorable one is someone in the accounting department at an old job who was forced to admin a machine back in the day being surprised that I could code, and more recent one is someone being surprised that I was able to successfully contribute to dealing with IE layout issues -- in both cases it's been like "but you're a systems guy, you can't do X", because they've only ever known me to be in that role "officially").