As an administrator, you will more than likely be responsible for your entire GIS system--infrastructure, such as application servers, database servers, web servers, and all the software, data, and processes that go along with that infrastructure. Having all of this to deal with, you need to be crafty and come up with as many ways as possible to save time and effort, and this is where scripting comes into play. Python (https://www.python.org) has quickly become the de facto standard scripting language of the Esri platform. Considering that Python is literally everywhere in the ArcGIS Enterprise ecosystem (and many other non-Esri systems as well for that matter), knowing how to script with Python is a necessary skill for almost anyone doing any sort of technical work with ArcGIS Enterprise.
This chapter assumes some familiarity and experience with...