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Re: Query for Top 10 Most "Expensive" Queries

From: Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_exxesolutions.com>
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 08:12:50 -0700
Message-ID: <1063033952.866006@yasure>


Response interspersed.

Billy Verreynne wrote:

>Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_exxesolutions.com> wrote .
>
>
>>As an instructor I can tell you from experience that you are incorrect.
>>Programming is a skill. Great programming adds artistic talent to the
>>skill. Most of the time I'd be happy to see a bit more skill. And the
>>skill is something that is taught and learned.
>>
>>
>
>Hmm.. maybe you are right Daniel. Here's my take though.
>
>I have very little recent experience in the formal training side (last
>run developer courses in the early & mid 90's). But I found back then
>that certain students have just an uncanny knack to grasp the basics
>and took to it like a fish to water.
>

Same is true for all humen endeavours. Surely you noticed in trig, geometry, and calculus ... some people get it far more easily than others. We are all wired a little bit differently (not to mention that some may have been wired at the time).

>Which is why I called it an art. You can teach someone like me to play
>guitar, but I'll never sound like Dave Gilmour even after a lifetime
>of practise. :-)
>

You'll never by Werner Heisenberg either. But that hardly makes quantum mechanics an art form.

><snipped>
>
>In various offices over the year the same thing. I still get
>programmers that I only need to explain a concept with half-a-word.
>You can literally see the light going on as they immediately grasp
>what you're saying (not just that, but seeing them running with the
>idea and assimilating it).
>

To which I would ask ... what percentage of them were truly qualified for the job? I know a contractor
right now with the City of Seattle that apparently couldn't normalize a schema if you threatened to feed him to sharks.

>Then there are the other which still get it wrong even after I have
>explained in numerous times on the white board. And both sets of
>programmers share the same type of training and experience.
>
>So what makes the difference?
>

Can you think of a single human endeavour that does not have its fair share of incompetents? Call your
insurance company. Call city hall? Go to the hardware store and ask a technical question related to hardware.

><snipped>
>
>
>>The problem today is that most people became programmers by
>>self-annointing themselves after banging around in Basic, VB, or MS
>>Access. They convinced some less than skilled manager to let them work
>>on an Oracle or other major project ... and have been making messes ever
>>since.
>>
>>
>
>Very true. And it is very difficult training people like that as they
>first need to be untaught bad habits before the training can start.
>

Exactly. It is not easy to convince the self-annointed that they are hacking not programming.

Most IS/IT management seems incapableof telling the difference.

>>A cram course for an OCP is not training. But you'd be hard pressed to
>>convince a lot of people of that fact. They build a few tables and call
>>themselves developers.
>>
>>
>
>Also true. Then (if you're me) you sit with massive complex triggers
>populating _AU tables for auditing and a "Oh!? I did not know Oracle
>had in-built auditing." Among other things... <sigh>
>
>--
>Billy
>
>

Too bad it can't audit the quality of thinking. But then if it did I'd likely back to sorting 3x5 cards.

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)
Received on Mon Sep 08 2003 - 10:12:50 CDT

Original text of this message

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