Medium Blog Interview: Network Programming and the Suitability of Pyththon

Here is an excerpt of the Medium post by Packt Publishing for a Q&A session with me on the topic of Network Programmability and Python (July 28th, 2020 4 min read):

Link: https://medium.com/@Packt/network-programming-and-the-suitability-of-python-277d296813fc

Network programming has always been a crucial task and an integral part of our communication. Networks in your infrastructure set the foundation for how your application can be deployed, maintained, and serviced. Python makes network programming an enjoyable experience with its well-documented and full-featured libraries ranging all the way to the stack.

What should be the starting point for developers aiming to begin their journey in network automation? What tips would you like to share with Network engineers?

For developers aiming to start their network automation journey, I would recommend getting more in-depth knowledge of the fundamentals of network engineering. Topics such as VLAN, Spanning-Tree, IP address, and subnet mask routing protocols are some of the topics that will go a long way for developers who might not have had the need to work with lower-level networks before.

For network engineers who want to get started with network automation, I think learning basic coding principles would definitely be beneficial. This can be done using a beginner-friendly language such as Python with its emphasis on readability and simple syntax.

What is the best way to incorporate network automation in your network?

The best way to incorporate network automation in a network is for the administrator to start learning about the available tools at hand and experiment with them in a safe and predictable environment. Then we can start to implement solutions that are suitable for our networks.

https://medium.com/@Packt/network-programming-and-the-suitability-of-python-277d296813fc

Hope you enjoy the article!

Eric