blandry (11/11/2008)

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A DBA who does not know VS? That's a DBA? I oversee staff for four companies (part of our corporate org) and I have never hired any "DBA" who simply knows SQL Server. Our companies could not run, let alone stay in business with such staff.

Maybe my thinking is this way because I came up in computing from the late 70's when you had to know it "all", and I must admit I am shocked at times these days when I interview or talk to young people who "specialize" in something so narrow that I am left wondering what these people do with the rest of their employment time.

GilaMonster (11/11/2008)
The thing is, the fields are so wide now that I doubt it's possible for someone to know everything about SQL Server (from the DB engine, through Analysis services, Integration services and reporting services) let alone everything about SQL and two or three other areas.

katedgrt (11/12/2008)

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This is the type of DBA that the appellation 'Don't Bother Asking' applies to.

Jonathan Kehayias (11/12/2008)

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I happen to work in an environment where I am just a DBA, and for a decently sized environment. However, having the dev background, I am quite competent in C# and VB.NET and that has played heavy in my success as a DBA, as well as in consulting work since I can switch hit to solve complex problems. It has also taught me to notice when things are better done in an application versus in the database. I sit in on development meetings with our .NET developers to know what they are doing, and to also offer ideas to them. I like to stay abreast of the changing technologies, and beyond that I a really am a total geek, so there are times that I know of a newer way to solve a problem that they haven't heard of or used yet.

george sibbald (11/12/2008)

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can't you see the irony in this? You are having a pop at DBA's who cannot do YOUR job better than YOU can. You have a basic misunderstanding of the DBA role in many shops, If you want someone to help with your coding call them a senior developer or a development DBA, which is not the same thing as a production DBA. Remember the A stands for Administration.

I can code to suit my requirements, I understand logical and physical design. I understand indexing strategies, I know good and bad practice, but I don't develop applications so I don't spend much time in VS and would expect developers to be better at coding than I am.

I could go on about all the Admin things that keep me busy but lifes too short and it does not matter anyway because everyone has their own view on what a DBA should be and do.

dphillips (11/12/2008)

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I agree totally. Having a DEV who is primarily a DEV but act as DBA is where I have seen problems. I have yet to see a DBA who aids in DEV (and in fact often does some DEV whether by SPs, SSIS, or data access code) to be a problem anywhere, unless it becomes so much so that they do more DEV than DBA.

A DBA who does not get familiar with how the data both is and needs to be used, and assist to those ends, is not a great DBA.