An interesting article Phil - I have seen both sides of the fence throughout my career which is why I choose to be 'pure' Production Support DBA.

That point aside, let us add one more variable to the equation - that being Vendor supplied software. Not just your typical install it, support it, patch it.

Let's call it a 'mutation' with 3 separate code bases:

- pure vendor supplied code

- pure client supplied code

- 'hybrid' code (a mix of Vendor and client based code).

It certainly makes for an interesting day at times. Even though our current charge is 'pure' Production Support, many times we have to get intimate with the code in order to identify root causes for performance based issues. So yes, even 'pure' Production Support DBAs can 'morph' into Development DBAs with the drop of a hat (or table or index).