Re: How did YOU get started?

I think it is very easy to "get started."

I started by attending Oracle & Sybase seminars. After a while, I began to understand what they were talking about... and how the two companies were saying things in different ways.

I read trade magazines about database management systems. Didn't read *everything*... just started reading as much as I could stand.

Since I knew dBaseII, and wrote some programs, and expressed an interest, I easily won the opportunity to be a database champion.

If someone wants to get started, I would recommend getting the personal oracle7, and start programming. The generic task is to set up a database, put some referential integrity checks in, cascade update/deletes, indexes, and triggers. That much is "free" for 90 days if you use Oracle trial software.

From my perspective, it's easier to become a database professional today than it ever was. 10 years ago, the books were awful, the software didn't work too well, and there weren't the nice tools that there are today to dink around with the system. Received on Wed Jan 17 1996 - 00:00:00 CET