Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Citizen Programmers

    The Citizen Programmer, a piece at Simple Talk, really made me stop and think a bit. On one hand, the idea of building a platform that enables any end-user to perform rudimentary programming is a noble goal. If you can do that, then you can dramatically reduce the costs associated with waiting for developers to build applications.

    On the other hand, the article praises the Visual Basic of the 90s, which allowed almost any one to build an application.

    And that was a problem. Despite the tremendous number of applications built, far, far too many of them were poorly written, prone to crashing computers, unable to scale to more than a single user in many cases, and were almost un-maintainable over time. These applications removed people from their knowledge work, having them spend time programming instead of their regular job. That might be good in some cases, where people had talent and desire to build software. It certainly forced the person coding the system to better understand the idea behind the work that they were doing.

    However in many cases, I think we might have ended up wasting lots of time. Certainly the people spending more and more time maintaining an application weren’t necessarily getting more work done. People dealing with buggy software might have been doing their job more slowly overall. There were also the problems with turning a VB application over to professional programmers who were loathe to work on it, and perhaps did little work to keep the application running. A lack of responsiveness from technology departments might restart the whole process with another poorly written VB application, each one a custom work of art that stumbled along inside of a business.

    I do think that giving tools to enable end users to perform some of their own analysis and review of data is important. I like the idea of PowerPivot and other tools that let users query data and build their own reports. I don’t know if we need professional developers for every piece of software, though I am sure we need software to be written faster and in a more agile fashion. In all cases, however, I know we do need professional DBAs to manage data and ensure it’s protected and intact as the speed and scale of our systems continue to grow.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. 

  • Managerial Moneyball

    I really enjoyed reading Moneyball. Its a book about baseball and data and how information should be used to choose baseball players for the Oakland As. It’s an interesting approach, one that has rarely been used in the sport in the past, though it is gaining traction. It does seem that this approach has helped the As to high level of success given the constraint of their limited payroll. There’s even a great movie if you don’t want to read the book, but the book is really much better and goes into more detail on data points and how they are used.

    The idea of using data to make decisions has been applied to other areas, with “The Moneyball Effect” being talked about in other industries. Recently I also ran across an opinion piece on bad managers that also referenced Moneyball. The piece notes that most people make poor managers. They lack the skills, and more importantly, they really lack those innate qualities that motivate, inspire, and engage employees. Whether you agree with that last part, I think most of you agree that most managers are poorly chosen, trained, and certainly not qualified.

    The idea of using data to identify people that would make good managers, and perhaps even move people out of managerial roles. The premise of the piece is really the bad managers make their teams perform worse, so if you’ve got one of the seven-out-of-ten people ill suited to the work, you should move them out of that position. Then identify, promote, train, and support the others to manage your employees and help them to perform at their best.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.3MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

  • Holiday Struggles

    It’s the slow time of year. As I saw tweeted recently, “And now for the month when nothing gets done.” I haven’t usually felt this way at a few jobs as the budget and planning process has typically been a part of a busy month. As I’ve run SQLServerCentral, I’ve also been looking back and forward this month, trying to think about our industry and data in a long term way. I have found December to be frenetic as times as I try to get in some ski days while still getting work done.

    However this year I’ve been in a situation that I think many people get into. I had a number of vacation days I needed to take, so I scheduled them a day here and there across the weeks. Between being off for Thanksgiving week, and missing almost the complete last two weeks of the year, I’m finding it a bit difficult to get into the swing of things as I have a few days back at work. It seems that work naturally slows down in teams as various people take holiday time off, but this is the first time that I’ve struggled to actually get my own work done as I’m in and out of the office on an irregular schedule.

    Perhaps this is the time when those of us who don’t work in Christmas related industries can catch up on work that we are often too busy to do otherwise. Are there maintenance items you can schedule? Maybe tackle some in-depth query tuning that is needed for end of year processes? Is it the time to “scratch an itch” at work? Red Gate has their Down Tools Week scheduled this week, and it’s a time when people can tackle fun projects that improve the business, but are rarely worked on. Our SQLServerCentral Scripts plug in for SSMS came out of one of these weeks.

    Pitch an idea to your boss to take a week or two and dig into something that is needed, but never prioritized. Maybe you’ll get your wish as a Christmas present.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.5MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • What Have You Learned Lately?

    Recently we had the 60th T-SQL Tuesday blog party. This was hosted by Chris Yates, and had the theme of Something New Learned. That’s a great topic and a lot of fun to write about.

    There were some great posts, and while it’s good to see people participating, it’s also the chance for everyone in the community to learn a few things. I’d bookmark some of these posts, and across the next few months, read one and dig into the topic a little. Do you know about the PSR in SQL Server? Do you know how to determine who has access to what in your SQL Server?

    These posts, and many other posts written for the various T-SQL Tuesday events are a great way to dig into a particular topic area, learn a few things and help guide your learning. There have been a few times that the topic itself has gotten me to experiment with some aspect of SQL Server prior to writing something, but you could just as easily go back and look at previous topics and start improving your learning.

    While there are many sites like SQLServerCentral to help you learn new skills, it can be fun to pick a single topic and dive in for a few weeks, practicing using the skill to solve some problems. This might be a great way for those of you that aren’t challenged at work to gain some new skills.

    I’ve had far too many friends find the need to unexpectedly look for a new job in the last year. I never take my employment for granted, and it’s one reason I try to continue to learn more about my craft, and build skills that might be in demand. After all, you never know when your company might make a change and you’ll need to look for new employment.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.