IT-sphere - what is this sphere of activity?
IT is a very young field of activity. Especially for Russia, which due to the complex political transformation of the first years of independence for a long time could not go on par with the technological development of Western countries. Today, of course, IT specialists from our country are rapidly reducing the gap with their foreign counterparts. Begin to take an interest in information technology and ordinary citizens. IT-sphere - what is it? What kind of people are engaged in it? Is it difficult to work in the field of IT technology?
Theory
Information technology (Englishabbreviation - IT, and completely - "information technologies") - a set of areas of human activity, as well as educational disciplines that are relevant to the processes of creating, storing, processing data, and managing them using computers (and other types of computer technology).
IT: international interpretation
IT-sphere - what is it - science or appliedactivity? There is an opinion that both. It can be reinforced, for example, by the prestige of large international organizations. There are, in particular, two popular definitions of the essence of IT from UNESCO. According to the first, information technology is a set of disciplines (carrying the nature of technological, scientific or engineering research) that study the ways in which people who process and store data are organized. The second definition, given by UNESCO experts, is as follows. IT is computer technology, as well as methods of its interaction with people and industrial equipment, its applications, as well as aspects of the socio-economic and cultural development of people that are relevant to its work.
What place does the Internet occupy in the structure of suchphenomenon, as an IT-sphere? What is it in the understanding of information technology theorists? Of course, there are many useful interpretations of the role of the Internet. But in most interpretations of experts, the World Wide Web is simply a tool for transferring (exchanging) data. The Internet is usually not considered a separate class of IT activities.
IT: People and Professions
People whose activity profile is related toimplementation of tasks within the framework of information technology, in general, are called IT specialists. Specific examples of activities that are suitable for this definition, a lot. Consider some common IT-professions: programmer, system administrator and webmaster.
Programmer
This person is qualified forcreating and editing algorithms written in specific languages and designed to organize and organize the process of input-output of data using a computer or other type of computer technology. What is it about? About the programs, of course. These very algorithms, which are set by a person, make the computer understandable by its "orders". Examples of programming languages are C ("C"), Perl, Java.
With the help of the program, the user lets the PC understand what he wants from him. In turn, the computer, recognizing the "requests", gives out in a language understandable to a person - text, pictures, sound - the result.
Programmer: a theorist or a practitioner?
A programmer is not a scientist or a theoretician. Even if he works at a university and carries out tasks related to research. That is, it is important to understand that this person, first of all, produces something, and therefore his activity can be considered applied. Programming - the sphere of IT-technologies, in which the important role is played by the aspect of practical usefulness of the actions performed by people. It is always expected that any theoretical work will lead to a concrete result.
A computer program is not just a text onspecial language. It is also an independent product that can work autonomously from others. A key feature of the program is independent functioning. It can be transferred somewhere in the form of files or, as an option, sell.
Business in IT, in fact, for the most part is based on the sale of the results of the work of programmers. This earns the largest IT companies: Apple, Microsoft and others.
To work with programs, it is not necessary to get a special education and to be a certified specialist-these are only possible methods of obtaining the required skills.
Multilanguage is the main requirement
Usually programmers know several languages at onceconstructing algorithms. If not, then it's not difficult to learn new ones, since the basic principles of "communication" with a PC are generally the same. Some languages are better adapted to the creation of computer games, others - to the production of text editors. In very many cases, writing a program in one language, you can "translate" it into another without losing functionality.
System administrators
An example of another common profession inIT-area - the system administrator. This person is qualified to ensure the stable operation of the computer equipment entrusted to him. That is, it is, first of all, a hired employee. The system administrator is less of a profession, more - a functional role. This can also be evidenced by the fact that the list of university specialties "system administrator" is extremely rare. While the "programmer" - regularly. However, both activities are recognized as professions.
Work of a person in the position of a systemAdministrator in the general case is not connected with writing programs. Most often, the "admin" deals with hardware components of computers, is engaged in setting up printers, modems, monitors, etc.
Often, the work of system administrators is reduced totraining (instructing) other employees the basics of working correctly with computers and other devices. If the company is large, and there are several "admins" in its staff, then everyone can be responsible for some particular area. Relatively speaking, Ivanov - for the operability of the internal computer network, Petrov - for the stability of the communication channel with the Internet, Sidorov - for the correct functioning of the programs on the employees' PCs.
We see that system administration -An example of a profession in which a person is engaged in working with the hardware domain of the global category, which is the IT sphere. That this is the same as programming, the most important part of information technology, there is no doubt.
Webmaster
This person is engaged in the creation of sites inInternet, the representative of one of the youngest IT-professions. Programmers and system administrators were still when the global network was at the stage of theoretical development. A web master and a programmer are to a certain extent close professions. They are united by the fact that they create a product that is significant from the point of view of using a computer - a website or a program. IT is a field of activity where very many professions and specializations are similar. But there are a lot of differences.
Webmaster operates a special language - HTML. It has certain features of similarity with programming languages, namely, algorithms by which a person lets the computer understand what he wants. In this case, how the web page displayed by the browser should look. But HTML has one feature that does not allow it to be included in programming languages: the algorithms it creates can not be executed independently. The fact is that a web page is not a program, but a document created so that the Internet browser correctly recognizes it.
Of course, many webmasters usespecialized programming languages designed to endow the site being created with improved functionality. In this case, we are talking about placing not web pages on the Internet, but algorithms that can execute independently. And then the two professions are combined: the webmaster, in addition to the main activity, becomes a programmer.
IT literary scholars
It is worth noting that the creation of websites - the scopeIT technology, which is adjacent to a large number of very different industries. Often, webmasters turn to designers, psychologists, who can help make the site able to impress users. A significant role in the creation of websites is played by humanitarian fields - linguistics, philology, literary criticism, because the most important component of web documents is text. It should be literate and attractive to visitors of virtual portals.
IT is a field of activity adjacent to a very largenumber of other industries. This is, above all, marketing. It is understandable - the IT business involves the promotion of computer products in various markets. This may be sociology, which allows you to understand the specifics of public sentiment regarding the development of computer networks or the spread of any software or hardware solutions. Mathematics, economists, ecologists can help IT-specialists.
When professions are not similar
Although all of the aboveactivities are related to IT, people representing one of them may have nothing to do with the other two. It is possible that a programmer who knows dozens of computer languages may not have a clue how the intranet network works or how to set up accounting software. At the same time, all these tasks are easily solved by the "admin". In turn, the webmaster, possessing remarkable talent in building cool sites, may not cope with the correct setting of the color scale of his own monitor and will call for help from the same system administrator. The latter, being well versed in the intricacies of establishing a connection between internal corporate PCs and ISP servers, it is possible that they will not understand a single word from the hypertext markup language.
Narrow profile or wide specialization?
There is a version that work in the field of IT-technologiesshould be as narrow a profile as possible. In some cases this is justified, but only if the specialization that a person chooses is really in demand by the market in a strategic perspective. An IT specialist who knows only one programming language, albeit perfectly, may sooner or later face a situation where his skills become obsolete. In this regard, many experts recommend that programmers be trained in the study of several languages - even if not so deeply, but with the continued ability to change the profile depending on the situation on the labor market. The same goes for system administrators and webmasters. True, it is extremely unlikely that both of these positions in the field of IT will cease to be relevant to the market. It is difficult to imagine that such positions as a system administrator or webmaster will disappear in firms. No matter how the IT sphere changes, a website development company and a brand supplier of accounting or other specialized software will most likely remain among the most common business units.
