Re: database systems and organizational intelligence

"Gene Wirchenko" <genew_at_mail.ocis.net> wrote in message news:tr5ab0hjdk37lpcgpgrh6qbbrcfq3f9k7j_at_4ax.com...
> "Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >Very shortly after COBOL "caught on", it stopped being used as a
combined
> >programming and documentation language. Essentially, if the program
> >"works", who cares how it looks? The owners have not only gone along
with
>
> At a high level, this is true.
>
> >this, but they have also been "enablers". It's an abuse of stewardship.
>
> I do not think so. Ask me to do something within my technical
> area, and I may produce something that you can not, in detail,
> understand. It may well do precisely what you want. Force me to do
> only that which you understand, and you cripple my potential.
>
> >The same thing can happen to data. But this post is already too long.
>
> I have heard that SQL was originally intended to be end user
> read-write.
>
> The problem with many such tools is that the users ask for more
> and more, and it ends up getting past what they can handle themselves.
> We specialists end up with it.

Yes, however whenever a risk assessment tells us that the end-user is requesting responsibility analogous to operating the elevator themselves, we need to try to push the responsibility outward. We then work ourselves into a different job of fixing the elevator when it breaks and ensuring the user can recover from any mistakes they make when operating the elevator. When the risk assessment tells us that the user is requesting the ability to fly the airplane themselves, then it is our professional responsibility to ensure that they, too, go through the proper training to become a pilot before there is any chance of this.

Which brings us to the fact that we, as a discipline, have made only minor steps forward (e.g. IEEE efforts) to formalize the training so that we can distinguish between an IT professional and an end-user in any way other than whether someone is part of an IT department in their organization.

But I, too, digress. --dawn Received on Thu May 27 2004 - 02:35:56 CEST