I am a Database Administrator with Solaris system administration taking up the other chunk of my time. I am NOT a formally trained programmer in Perl or C or any other language except SQL. Perl is my tool of choice, though, when performing tasks related to my primary responsibilities.

That having been said, let me suggest that there are people born to program and people who have to work at it. I fall into the latter category. I RTFM, I practice, I ask questions of people who know more than I (including some young whippersnappers who could be my offspring), and from time to time I achieve that "Ah-Ha!" reaction.

Is there hope for your operator? Perhaps. Perhaps he/she will need to settle back into a niche that does not require programming. Or perhaps your operator will have that epiphany that many of us have experienced. It sounds like there are good resources at your place of work, and I hope the 4 others are as supportive as you are in trying to bring this person along.

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"Computeri non cogitant, ergo non sunt"