Hi Janet,

I think you have a lot to offer and would enjoy reading your articles more if I felt you were not using them to make a dig at someone or other (ie managers, production DBA's - from almost all your previous articles). We ALL make mistakes, but someties you have to let people do their job, even though mistakes may be made. There are often a lot of reasons for such mistakes happening, not least the issues of complexity, and of responsibility and accountability. If some juniors do not understand what I have done, then I believe it is for me to help them to understand (we were all juniors once and I for one am extremely grateful to those mentors that have helped me in gaining knowledge, and I'm still learning through people on sites such as this). I have worked on both sides of the fence - developer and DBA - and have worked in both small companies and large multinationals, so have experienced all the dynamics and politics that come with the roles I have held, and will agree that some places have been very challenging whilst others were an absolute pleasure to work for. I admire you for being prepared to put your technical skills and experience into articles for others to scrutinise (and maybe even critises). So, keep up the good work, but just leave out the digs that detract from the great stuff you are writing.

Ian Garrett

A Production DBA (and ex-developer), and proud of it!