Jeff Moden (1/8/2012)
It therefore always surprises me when Application programmers tell me that all 'Agile' techniques are directly applicable to database development.
Heh... what did you expect, Phil? Many application programmers and their managers have misinterpreted the Agile Manifesto as meaning there doesn't need to be any documentation or preparation and have also misinterpreted what Knuth said about pre-optimization being the root of all evil. With exceptions, of course, most of the application programmers that I've met and worked with personally all think the same thing... disk space is cheap, machines with more memory are coming, stored procedures are an evil to be avoided, and an RDBMS is just a place to store data.
As a very interesting (to me, anyway) sidebar, I'm currently working with 3 wonderful Application Developers that have seen the proverbial light and actually get it. Like the song says, "I'm in Heavennnnn!" I think that part of the reason why they get it is because they're the ones that have to clean up after their "Agile/No Pre-Optimization/Design-on-the-fly" predecessors.
Amazing what happens when confronted clean up is involved.
Kind of like when I ground boxes on the floor, and then started to weld.
Every welder should have to grind their own welds.
It tends to improve the process.:hehe: