Re: Database Design

From: Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 08:37:43 -0800
Message-ID: <1073320577.260552@yasure>

Tony wrote:

> Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:<1073258709.842527_at_yasure>...
>

>><RANT>
>>We are the only "profession" in which practitioners expect to be able to 
>>work without credential. No one is practicing medicine, law, accounting, 
>>engineering, dentistry, pharmacy, etc. with so little evidence of skill. 
>>Consider that anyone of us could walk into a pharmacy, count pills, and 
>>put a label on the bottle. Yet no government in North America, Europe, 
>>Australia, New Zealand, or any other first world country, would let us 
>>do so without a pharmacy degree and passing a government sponsored exam.
>>
>>So we pay for our "wild west" mentality by watching our jobs being 
>>offshored to those as qualified as we are ... because there are no 
>>official qualifications to do what we do.
>></RANT>

>
>
> I could not agree with you more. You only have to look at some of the
> postings that appear on sites like this one: "My company have tasked
> me with building a database to handle all our payroll and accounts for
> 5000 employees. I know some Visual Basic and once saw Access over
> someone else's shoulder. Please advise how to go about designing a
> database". I made that up, but we have all ready postings just like
> that.
>
> But could anyone ever seriously post to eng.construct.buildings or
> whatever: "My company have tasked me with building a new office block
> to house 5000 employees. I know some woodwork, and once hodded bricks
> on a building site during the summer vacation. Please advise how to
> go about designing a 15-storey building"?

Beautiful. Brilliantly stated.

But another interesting fact. No one would have the nerve to go to eng.construct.buildings and ask such a question. Yet we tolerate, some even encourage, such nonsense in our industry. We are sowing the seeds of our own destruction. It might appear rude but it would be doing ourselves and our industry a great service if we told those asking such questions to stop playing in traffic and get a formal education.

-- 
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 Jan 05 2004 - 10:37:43 CST