Re: Discovering new relationships
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:31:43 GMT
Message-ID: <j1AHh.1241783$1T2.891766_at_pd7urf2no>
mountain man wrote:
> "paul c" <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac> wrote in message
> news:2I4Gh.1209192$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 - 15:31:43 CET