Re: Indexes and Foreign Keys

From: Galen Boyer <galen_boyer_at_yahoo.com>
Date: 12 Mar 2006 19:49:07 -0600
Message-ID: <uacbvlz9r.fsf@rcn.com>

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006, gogala_at_sbcglobal.net wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:09:37 -0700, Mark A wrote:
>

>> The 80-20 rule that I subscribe to says that 80% of DBA's are not
>> smart enough to figure out when an index is needed and when it is
>> not. Probably the real ratio is 95-5.

>
> I really don't do polls among DBA people. I've met my betters several
> times. I've met Tim Gorman, Jonathan Lewis, Tanel Poder, Arup Nanda
> and Paul Drake. I have never met Tom Kyte, Cary Millsap, Dan Fink,
> Steve Adams, Howard Rogers, Richard Foote, James Morle, Gaja
> Vaidayanatha, K. Gopalakrishnan and Connor McDonald, all of whom I
> consider much more knowledgeable then myself.

There are very few on this board whom I would consider myself the better of, and you are definitely one of those I consider better than I.

> Judging about the "average DBA" would be nothing short of preposterous
> arrogance on my part. Furthermore, I firmly believe that no such
> creature as an "average DBA" exists in the wild. Frequently, technical
> knowledge isn't even the most important characteristic of a DBA. Good
> personality, good working relationship with your coworkers and the
> ability to carry out the orders of the management are equally as
> important as a good technical knowledge.

Couldn't agree any more strongly.

> The letter "A" in the abbreviation DBA stands for "Administrator". DB
> administrator is an administrator, a part of a bureaucracy, which
> means that he must understand his place in the pyramid and fit
> in. Most of the commercial environments are not MIT, Lawrence
> Livermore or Chase Manhattan. Most of the commercial environments are
> doing business happily with DBA personnel far less knowledgeable then
> Cary Millsap, Tom Kyte or Steve Adams.

A DBA doesn't have to be as good as the best, by any stretch, but if he doesn't know how to search the best's archives and own a few of the best books and can talk intelligently of those books, then I do have a problem with that DBA.

> The most important secret of a good DBA is the attitude: he mustn't
> see the DBA position as a position of a guru, artist or a rock-star,
> he must learn a thing or two about the company business, know enough
> to make a valuable contribution to the company business and know when
> to call in the calvary, the big guys from renowned consulting
> companies like Hotsos, TUSC, JL Computer Consultancy or Ixora. To
> quote the "Life of Brian", we're all individuals. There is no such
> creature as an average DBA on the face of the planet. An average
> developer, however, is a different matter altogether.

I think the best developers are those that could do the DBA job quite well if they were asked to take on that role. I've never operated as a production DBA. I would love to do this, but I would only want to do it for an extended period, at least 3 years. Only then, would I feel I would have been intensively practicing and studying that craft. But, at the end of the day, I love to architect and subsequently code solutions, grab up loads of extension technologies and basically just play around with a bunch of different technology all day. Its a shame that the DBA role isn't _normally_ (at least in my experience) considered an extension of those activities, but alas, it seems to be that way in most situations, so I stay in the architecture/development side of the house, because that is something I've been doing for over 10 years now, and to this day, still gravitate heavily towards.

-- 
Galen Boyer

Received on Sun Mar 12 2006 - 19:49:07 CST