Re: Source Control for DB objects
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 10:04:31 -0500
Message-ID: <CA+fnDAawJXW=aw157ryGXjJjuA2Qpr5mkHBFu0bVkHW0YA3hLQ_at_mail.gmail.com>
Well there are some good reasons that almost no serious developer in the world uses CVS anymore... (and hasn't for years.) At one big org where I've worked, business critical scripts were just copied between directories for change control. The upshot is that there's one guy who owns the scripts, most others are afraid to touch them, and this poor guy never gets a vacation and I don't know what they'll do when he eventually retires. Sure, the code isn't "broke" in a technical sense... I mean it works. Backups and clones and monitoring and a hundred other things get done. But these particular groups aren't evaluating their practices and processes at all. You can't change practices overnight, but what worries me is the reluctance to even evaluate them and consider upgrading processes just we upgrade software when improvements become available.
You could say it's a difference between "fire-fighting" mentality (I only look at something which is on fire) and a "health" mentality (I want my environment to be reasonably healthy). Granted, it's just as easy to over-emphasize health to the point of constantly changing things - and in fact you'll never have a *perfect* environment or practices. This is what leads DBAs to Compulsive-Tuning-Disorder. And at smaller orgs I more often see that tendancy. But at bigger places, I feel like I more often see an outright reluctance to evaluate practices and consider improvements. And CVS - while it does work for super-basic stuff - is really, really old. I love the newer tools because there are so many amazing features.
IMHO, using CVS is like running all your apps on Oracle 7. FWIW, the Java people always say "it doesn't matter as long as I can store my objects in this bit-bucket." The DBA people say "but 11g is SO MUCH better for both you and me!!" Well this conversation about source control is the same, but in reverse. DBA people are saying "it doesn't matter as long as my backup works." I'm saying "but modern source control systems are SO MUCH better for both users and admins!!" Perhaps this whole conversation is another artifact of the pronounced silo phenomenon in technology fields.
-Jeremy
PS - i have tested as both ENFJ and INTJ at various times... both legitimate, my personality has just shifted a little over time. :)
On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Taylor, Chris David < ChrisDavid.Taylor_at_ingrambarge.com> wrote:
> Regarding your soap-box, this is a matter of personality types I think. (
> http://www.personalitypage.com/html/portraits.html)****
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> Regarding “if it’s not broke, then don’t fix it” the question is: ...
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> Just some thoughts to consider.****
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> *Chris Taylor*****
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> *Sr. Oracle DBA*****
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-- http://www.ardentperf.com +1 312-725-9249 Jeremy Schneider Chicago -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Thu Aug 04 2011 - 10:04:31 CDT