Hrm, you have a point there. I would think, however, that instead of an abridged lesson, you would be better off with an abridged lesson plan. Something that would highlight what was important, a brief blurb of why, and then some dicussion, or links, to those who have already said what needs to be understood well.

In terms of database design, I would have to disagree heavily here. Most front end developers code (nowadays, anyway) to the object oriented structures they carry through the code. These iterative structures are usually horribly de-normalized to the database mentality. It was worse 'back when', when I saw tables dedicated to a web/app page. While you may not be a dunderhead ( :w00t: ) and the folks you have in mind aren't, I've ran into many that were. The design was logical, sound from their perspective, connected into views intelligently... and made me cry from a database design perspective.

So... no, I must disagree with you that design and development at the database level remains a forte of 'the best programmers'. The average Database developer (DBA, since they get thrown into that role, too) has done, on average, a better job then all but the best of the application developers I've seen. This is, of course, my experience. I've contracted at about 16 companies at this point in the last 8 years, however, so I feel I've got some breadth there. At the same time, I've gotten a bit of a reputation with a few firms as a firestomper, so I may be seeing more than my fair share of horrible designs. 😀