Most professions are full of all sorts of myths about how the job works. Usually they are things people who aren't in that profession believe and IT is especially full of myths because of the very new and complex nature of this business. I saw an interesting list of items specific to IT.
As I answer questions here and other places, I'm always amazed at how many people are constantly drawn into these myths. I'm hoping that it's a constant flow of new people and not a case of lessons not being learned. That does seem to be the case at least with SQL Server.
There are a few myths that I think are worth expanding on here, and I'll expand on others at another time, but the first one I saw was one that struck me immediately.
"IT rules exist for a reason"
You'd like to think that there are really good reasons for all the various rules that we create at work, but I'm not sure that's the case. Many of them have some basis in reality, for example, not carrying around stick soda pops or creamy Caramel Macchiato in a data center is usually because someone dropped one on a server or keyboard and equipment had to be replaced. Or it might be because someone dropped it on the floor and annoyed the next person.
Or course, it's also good common sense not to mix beverages and high priced electrical equipment as well.
However we're all human, especially the managers, directors, and supervisors that make the rules. And you're as likely to get a rule created for annoying them as for prevention of some disaster.
I think that most rules created to prevent issues from Murphy's Law have some basis in reality. And while they are often created because one person didn't use common sense or pay attention, that doesn't mean they're not good rules to have in place, even when they're incredibly annoying, like not having coffee at my side when I'm working on a server at 2am.
The one thing that I hate to see, and which it seems that the experts often are guilty of, is creating a rule out of a best practice. There are so many ideas and techniques for solving problems in the database world and many of them apply in different places. I hate to see people setting down rules about how databases should work when there's only one rule I really abide by in SQL Server.
"It always depends"
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
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