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 even 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 (the English abbreviation is IT, and completely - "information technologies") is a set of areas of human activities, as well as educational disciplines that are relevant to the processes of creating, storing, processing data, and managing them using computers (and other types Computer technology).

IT: international interpretation

IT-sphere - what is it - science or applied activity? There is an opinion that both. Strengthened it can be, for example, the authority 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 character 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 a 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 relevant to its work.

What place does the Internet occupy in the structure of such a phenomenon as the IT sphere? What is it in the understanding of information technology theorists? Of course, there are many ways of interpreting 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 connected with the implementation 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 to create and edit algorithms written in specific languages and designed to organize and organize the process of input-output 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", produces a language in a language understandable to a person - text, pictures, sound - the result.

A 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 is the sphere of IT-technologies, in which the most important role is played by the aspect of the practical usefulness of people's actions. It is always expected that any theoretical working time will lead to a concrete result.

A computer program is not just a text in a specific language. It is also an independent product that can work autonomously from others. The 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 receive a special education and to be a certified specialist -these are only possible methods of obtaining the required skills.

Multilanguage is the main requirement

Typically, programmers know several languages at once for constructing 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 in the IT field is 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.

The work of a person in the position of a system administrator is generally not related to 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 reduces to training (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 is an example of a profession in which a person is engaged in working with the hardware domain of the global category that 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 on the Internet, 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. The web master and the 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, very many webmasters use specialized programming languages designed to give the site created improved functionality. In this case, it is a question of placing on the Internet not web pages, but capable of executing algorithms independently. And then the two professions merge: the web master in addition to the main activity becomes a programmer.

IT-literary critics

It is worth noting that the creation of Web sites is a sphere of IT-technologies, which is adjacent to a large number of very different industries. Often, webmasters turn to designers, psychologists, who can help make a site capable of impressing users. A significant role in the creation of sites 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 for visitors to virtual portals.

IT - the sphere of activity, adjacent to a very large number of other industries. This is, first of all, marketing. It is understandable - the business in the IT sector involves the promotion of computer products in various markets. This may be sociology, which allows us to understand the specifics of public sentiment regarding the development of computer networks or the dissemination of any software or hardware solutions. IT specialists can be assisted by mathematicians, economists, environmentalists.

When the professions are not similar

Despite the fact that all of the above activities are related to IT, people who represent one of them may not have anything to do with the other two at all. It is possible that a programmer who knows dozens of computer languages may not have a clue how an intranet is working or how to customize accounting software. While all these tasks are easily solved by the "admin". In turn, the webmaster, possessing a remarkable talent in building class sites, may not be able to cope with the correct setting of the color gamut of his own monitor and will call for help from the same system administrator. The latter, perfectly understanding the intricacies of setting up a connection between intracorporate PCs and servers of an Internet provider, is not ruled out that he will not understand a word from the hypertext markup language.

Narrow profile or broad specialization?

There is a version that work in the field of IT-technologies should be as narrow as possible profile. In some cases this is justified, but only if that 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 encounter a situation where his skills become obsolete. In this regard, many experts recommend that programmers receive training in the study of several languages - albeit not so deeply, but with the continued ability to change the profile depending on the situation in the labor market. The same goes for system administrators and webmasters. However, it is extremely unlikely that both these IT positions will cease to be relevant to the market. It is difficult to imagine that in firms such positions as system administrator or web master will disappear. No matter how the IT sphere is changing, the company-developer of sites and the brand-provider of accounting or other specialized software will most likely remain among the most common business units.