While Twitter certainly isn't the most open source platform, the open source community on the social network brings a lot of great minds together on a daily basis. The site, as I see it, also democratizes access to these brilliant minds since we're all just one @ away.
Here are nine people whose Twitter accounts are making my pursuit of sysadmin knowledge, and its continued evolution, better. They fall across the spectrum of technology with the one thing they have in common being their passionate, informative, and thoughtful perspective. They share a wealth of knowledge from explaining Linux commands through comics, to applying a PhD's worth of knowledge to making DevOps make sense.
Julia Evans @b0rk
Julia has found a beautiful way to combine her love for sysadmin skills with her talent in drawing. She teaches the skills you need to be a deeply knowledgeable sysadmin through "zines" (online magazines) that are as playful as they are brilliant.
reminder: if you like the comics I post on twitter, they're collected into zines you can buy at ★ https://t.co/nhLOmiVkJJ ★ pic.twitter.com/rRy9uijlnS
— ?Julia Evans? (@b0rk) January 23, 2019
Nicole Forsgren, PhD @nicolefv
If you have ever asked, "Is there data that supports DevOps' effectiveness?" then you need to be following Nicole. She has led DORA's annual State of DevOps Report from its inception and is the lead author of the new book Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps.
Y'all, I am SUPER excited and unbelievably proud to announce that Accelerate, the book I coauthored with @jezhumble and @RealGeneKim, has just been awarded the Shingo Publication Award from @ShingoPrize -- the top award for Lean and operational work. ? https://t.co/NfIqMuNUx4
— nicole forsgren PHD IN COMPUTERING THINGS (@nicolefv) April 26, 2019
Jessie Frazelle @jessfraz
If you're into kernel hacking, NASA nerdery, and honest thoughts from a self-defined weirdo, you will be very happy to follow Jessie's exploration of the intersection of technology and culture. You will become smarter on a regular basis if you investigate the projects she's exploring.
I got to write the forward for @calavera and @fntlnz's new eBPF book! Here it is :Dhttps://t.co/aCZIRFb8I6
— jessie frazelle ??? (@jessfraz) July 11, 2019
Jess Dodson @girlgerms
Jess is a passionate, open, and witty sysadmin-focused tweeter.
— Jess Dodson (@girlgerms) July 14, 2019
Angie Jones @techgirl1908
If you've ever wondered what the evolution of manual testing looks like, go no further than Angie's tweets. She's deep in that space and exploring topics that all sysadmin-minded people can appreciate. You'll be smarter for doing so. Bonus: If you're ever wanted to learn Java, she's recently released a free course to help you do so (and it has a great testing angle to it).
The wait is over! I've just released my free #Java course! ?
The course is designed for beginners to programming, so if you or anyone you know has been wanting to get into coding, this is a great resource to do so. https://t.co/eQ9rqOjegD pic.twitter.com/Pk9q2dcH6b— Angie Jones (@techgirl1908) May 31, 2019
Bridget Kromhout @bridgetkromhout
Bridget is the person who first introduced me to container technology. She continues to share her expertise in DevOps, Kubernetes, and many other IT ops topics. She also is the DevOpsDays international lead and the local Minneapolis lead, and an expert-level live-tweeter of talks.
“What’s left is _people_.” @adamhjk with a powerful message on community stewardship and building meaning. #oscon pic.twitter.com/66CjbedrXJ
— Bridget Kromhout (@bridgetkromhout) July 18, 2019
Vallery Lancey @vllry
As I see it, Vallery is live-tweeting, amongst other things, her pursuit to be an expert Kubernetes administrator. She goes *deep* on the topic on a regular basis and is a textbook example of how to engage with the open source community. This thread will give you an idea:
Kubernetes' data model is a major performance/scalability bottleneck. I'm wondering how (if ever) it will change.
All resources (within a scope, EG all pods within a namespace) are stored together. This makes things simple, but becomes huge.— Vallery Lancey (@vllry) July 12, 2019
Ashley McNamara @ashleymcnamara
Some joke that a Sysadmin who learns Go is now an SRE. f you have wondered about the programming language Go, follow Ashley to keep up-to-date on its maturation and new uses. She's also an excellent curator of internet memes.
My kid is gaming with friends so I brought him a snack and he says, "Thanks, Love you" then laughter erupts on the headset and he goes, "What? You don't love your mothers? I'm sad for you." so if you need me I'll just be over here sobbing into my worlds best mom ribbon.
— Ashley McNamara (@ashleymcnamara) April 19, 2019
Nina Zakharenko @nnja
Similar to the Sysadmin + Go meme is a Sysadmin that knows Python is now a DevOps Engineer. Nina continuously shares her expertise in Python with incredible storytelling. She's an inspiration.
Thanks for the nice write up of my PyCon US keynote! ?? @btskinn
? Missed it?
? Video: https://t.co/zqt9IOuzcR
? Slides: https://t.co/f86bXnIC2Y
✏️ blog post by @pylogging: https://t.co/mN4r4Ddnc2 pic.twitter.com/u9kAjebfhP— Nina Zakharenko ?? (@nnja) June 27, 2019
Bonus: Follow sysadmin topics and companies
While I find the most value from Twitter by following real human beings that inspire me on a regular basis, there are some wonderful companies and projects that can also add to your day-to-day fun on the site. Here are a few:
- Reading IT Revolution Books has greatly improved my knowledge of DevOps; it's worth following on Twitter, too.
- Hackaday.io bills itself as the "world's largest hardware + software community. It looks pretty fun.
- Lists can also be a great way to avoid following lots of people, but still seeing their work. Chris Short has curated a fantastic list of Twitter accounts about sysadmin topics.
- I love podcasts, and The Changelog is a mix of new episodes, open source news, and tech memes.
- The best conference to attend as an open source enthusiast is All Things Open, and they curate a fun set of content.
And finally, to enjoy Twitter more as a work tool, don't forget about muting the noise you don't want to see there. It's made all the difference for me personally.
Have questions? Ask in the comments or DM me @mbbroberg.
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