Re: Indexes and Foreign Keys

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:09:37 -0700, Mark A wrote:

> The 80-20 rule that I subscribe to says that 80% of DBA's are not smart
> enough to figure out when an index is needed and when it is not. Probably
> the real ratio is 95-5.

I really don't do polls among DBA people. I've met my betters several times. I've met Tim Gorman, Jonathan Lewis, Tanel Poder, Arup Nanda and Paul Drake. I have never met Tom Kyte, Cary Millsap, Dan Fink, Steve Adams, Howard Rogers, Richard Foote, James Morle, Gaja Vaidayanatha, K. Gopalakrishnan and Connor McDonald, all of whom I consider much more knowledgeable then myself. Judging about the "average DBA" would be nothing short of preposterous arrogance on my part. Furthermore, I firmly believe that no such creature as an "average DBA" exists in the wild. Frequently, technical knowledge isn't even the most important characteristic of a DBA. Good personality, good working relationship with your coworkers and the ability to carry out the orders of the management are equally as important as a good technical knowledge. The letter "A" in the abbreviation DBA stands for "Administrator". DB administrator is an administrator, a part of a bureaucracy, which means that he must understand his place in the pyramid and fit in. Most of the commercial environments are not MIT, Lawrence Livermore or Chase Manhattan. Most of the commercial environments are doing business happily with DBA personnel far less knowledgeable then Cary Millsap, Tom Kyte or Steve Adams. The most important secret of a good DBA is the attitude: he mustn't see the DBA position as a position of a guru, artist or a rock-star, he must learn a thing or two about the company business, know enough to make a valuable contribution to the company business and know when to call in the calvary, the big guys from renowned consulting companies like Hotsos, TUSC, JL Computer Consultancy or Ixora. To quote the "Life of Brian", we're all individuals. There is no such creature as an average DBA on the face of the planet. An average developer, however, is a different matter altogether.

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