Re: Discovering new relationships

From: paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac>
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:31:43 GMT
Message-ID: <j1AHh.1241783$1T2.891766@pd7urf2no>

mountain man wrote:
> "paul c" <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac> wrote in message
> news:2I4Gh.1209192$R63.892904_at_pd7urf1no...
>

>>mountain man wrote:
>>...
>>
>>>Database systems theory can instruct you only to a
>>>certain level about change management.  Practice
>>>on the other hand, with live and volatile and changing
>>>data, will also instruct you in the more practical matters
>>>of evolving relationships in changing schemas.
>>>...
>>
>>This post reminds me of how much I think it is a shame how this group 
>>spends most of its time dispelling nonsense instead of suggesting 
>>progress.  I agree completely with the first sentence above, but the 
>>second leads nowhere.

>
>
> Are you suggesting that there is everything to be gained from
> the theory of database systems, and nothing to be gained by
> actually working hands-on with database systems which are
> to be evolved and change-managed?
> ...

I didn't put my admittedly sarcastic attitude about this topic very clearly.

As of ten years ago, most change management was seat-of-the-pants, ignorant of any theory, relying on adhoc rules-of-thumb or so-called "best practices", a euphemism for basically nothing, "applied" by a selection of mostly mediocre people from various disciplines. Being that way, they were mostly unaware of database theory. I suspect nothing about that has changed. If so, change management "practice" now lags a further ten years behind.

The great value of theory is to make precise predictions. A layman might reasonably think that ought to be the main purpose of change management. I think you are confusing practice with application.

p Received on Wed Mar 07 2007 - 08:31:43 CST