Re: Database Design

Galen Boyer <galenboyer_at_hotpop.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 05 Jan 2004, damorgan_at_x.washington.edu wrote:
>> Galen Boyer wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 04 Jan 2004, damorgan_at_x.washington.edu wrote:
>>>
>>>>We are the only "profession" in which practitioners expect to
>>>> be able to work without credential.
>>> Bankers, Stock Analysts, CEOs, Managers, line-workers,
>>> Restauranteurs, Salesmen, ...
>>
>> I put quote marks around the word profession, see above, for a
>> reason. None of the above are technically professions in the
>> sense the word is used to described those occupations I
>> listed.
>
>I don't understand how.
>
>> Sorry if my meaning wasn't clear.
>
>It is clear that you, and others, think that our profession needs
>to be elevated to the level on par with medicine. That is a
>thought that screams self-importance. Our profession and work
>isn't dealing with life-threatening issues. I think those that
>feel that way need to get a better perspective on what it is our
>profession is. We are IT professionals. We strive to be
>extremely talented at what we do. We love the creativity,
>challenge, ... of our professions. But, in the "Grand scheme of
>things" we provide very little societal benefit, very few of us
>do anything remotely dealing with life issues (there are a small
>few that deal with medical records that are used by the medical
>profession) and our profession's output isn't important enough to
>warrant a government or even industry sponsored credentials test.

Sorry, but, while not on a par with medicine ( or law or nursing, or many others) , any profession responsible ,in many cases, for keeping multi-million dollar organizations up and running  ( think about the Airlines, Banks, Stock Exchange,UPS, etc.) need not be shy about being proud of its skills. [I know of one company that would lose 25K for each minute the database was down] Their does need to be some way, however, to insure that those that profess to be DBAs ( or Application Developers, Web Designers, whatever) have the skill set needed for the task at hand. How to do this makes for a lively debate.

Just my somewhat proud 2c... Received on Tue Jan 06 2004 - 09:47:03 CST