January 9, 2013 at 10:58 am
So I had a funny thing happen to me a few minutes ago and couldn't help but share...
QA Tester 11:54 AM
I have a BIG question for you of utmost importance
ME 11:55 AM
lol
QA Tester 11:55 AM
database is one word
yes?
ME 11:55 AM
yes
QA Tester 11:55 AM
so....
ME 11:55 AM
that is super important
QA Tester 11:55 AM
why do we have DBAs, and not DAs?
ME 11:55 AM
you know I have never pondered that before
QA Tester 11:55 AM
so we don't think you're part of the District Attorney's office?
ME 11:56 AM
rofl
QA Tester 11:56 AM
Ponder that one today!
January 9, 2013 at 11:43 am
Okay, so we don't get confused with District Attorneys, but people think my job title is "Doing Business As". Not much of an improvement. 🙂
But there are lots of cases for including a sub-word in an accronym or initialism. Just like you sometimes leave out minor words, like "of", (FBI, USA) and sometimes keep them in (SCOTUS, POTUS). It's kind of like how you capitalize the "D" in "MacDonald". It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be accepted.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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January 10, 2013 at 7:01 am
Was it always one word? Back in the day? Where's Jeff. He remembers the dawn of time. If it used to be Data Base, then DBA makes sense.
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January 10, 2013 at 7:27 am
Grant Fritchey (1/10/2013)
Was it always one word? Back in the day? Where's Jeff. He remembers the dawn of time. If it used to be Data Base, then DBA makes sense.
Heh... yeah... back in the days of dinosaurs and Bill Gates could not yet spell "PC", it was two words. But, I think the real reason why they didn't go with "DA" is because that's also short for "Duck's A**" which was a hairstyle the bikers wore along with a pack of smokes rolled up in their T-Shirt sleeve.
Funny how things change... back then, bikers were the really clean cut folks.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 16, 2013 at 4:57 am
A friend works somewhere with a DA (Data Administrator) in addition to three DBAs (Production, Development & Backup). All four are heads of small teams. Admittedly, I've never worked anywhere with this sort of set-up. But I've also not worked anywhere that was particularly large, so people wear many hats 🙂
January 17, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Back in the Dark Days of mainframes, VSAM, and JCL, a DBA was the guy getting called at 2:00am when something went poof. A DA was a Data Analyst who slaved over obscure data points to create a form of reality for upper management only to have his work go away when things went poof.
January 17, 2013 at 4:29 pm
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