March 6, 2020 at 2:29 am
Shifiting gears a bit, I almost blew a chicken bone out of my nose on the final sentence of the following post. WallyWizard for President! 😀
https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/what-type-of-join-is-this#post-3731678
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 6, 2020 at 2:34 pm
We have a group who's sole responsibility is to write reports. They are supposed to be doing data analysis, but that's another subject.
None of them have any technical skills, or technical training. The needed to be granted access to dev and qa for Azure SQL databases.
I sent this:
The servers are: devsqlserverprimary..database.windows.net,1433
qasqlserverprimary..database.windows.net,1433
The databases are:
Dev = Dev-Data-DB
QA = Qa-Data-DB
I get the emails "We can't connect to Dev = Dev-Data-DB".
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
March 6, 2020 at 2:39 pm
We have a group who's sole responsibility is to write reports. They are supposed to be doing data analysis, but that's another subject.
None of them have any technical skills, or technical training. The needed to be granted access to dev and qa for Azure SQL databases.
I sent this:
The servers are: devsqlserverprimary..database.windows.net,1433
qasqlserverprimary..database.windows.net,1433
The databases are:
Dev = Dev-Data-DB
QA = Qa-Data-DB
I get the emails "We can't connect to Dev = Dev-Data-DB".
One of those head-desk moments
😎
March 6, 2020 at 2:43 pm
We have a group who's sole responsibility is to write reports. They are supposed to be doing data analysis, but that's another subject.
None of them have any technical skills, or technical training. The needed to be granted access to dev and qa for Azure SQL databases.
I sent this:
The servers are: devsqlserverprimary..database.windows.net,1433
qasqlserverprimary..database.windows.net,1433
The databases are:
Dev = Dev-Data-DB
QA = Qa-Data-DB
I get the emails "We can't connect to Dev = Dev-Data-DB".
oh man 🙂 that is a total face palm moment - we now have the 7th dwarf.... facepalm DBA
MVDBA
March 6, 2020 at 4:31 pm
Always amazes me when companies assume too much.
We had an operations manager who would intentionally ask for the same report from several people. Then compare the results. He knew the business and data well, so he could tell a lot about the skill level of each person rather quickly. And could tell when the data had been massaged.
He was also good to work with as he appreciated well thought out measures and dimensions. And to him, good reports measured progress and showed areas where action was needed.
Early in my career, I became his go to for many reports before moving from operations into the data warehouse group.
Technical skills and training take a back seat to sometimes. A person who has the desire to figure out how things work at a low level, and the gray matter between the ears to make good use of what they learn, likely might be someone you could look for to mentor. Sounds like some direction is needed for this group. They should be an extension to those building the db to be effective.
One or two of the right people many times are better than a small army of Excel Jockeys. Hope you find a way to make this work - sounds like a rough launch.
March 6, 2020 at 6:59 pm
This --> "a small army of Excel Jockeys" <-- is a truly unpleasant image, I wish I could un-see it 🙂
March 6, 2020 at 7:09 pm
They are not even Excel jockeys. One of them has a LAW degree. she just passed her bar exam and is not going into law. The rest have psychology degrees.
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
March 6, 2020 at 7:54 pm
They are not even Excel jockeys. One of them has a LAW degree. she just passed her bar exam and is not going into law. The rest have psychology degrees.
At least the ones with the Law degrees will know what "It Depends" means. 😀
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 6, 2020 at 9:03 pm
Michael L John wrote:They are not even Excel jockeys. One of them has a LAW degree. she just passed her bar exam and is not going into law. The rest have psychology degrees.
At least the ones with the Law degrees will know what "It Depends" means. 😀
The frustrating thing is that clearly these folks put in the time to get their degrees, and be subject matter experts in their chosen fields of study. The time they spend learning the technology, even the basic concepts, has been minimal. It's not as if they are arrogant sots who think they know it all. It's a good group to work with. There's just this "mental block" or something that prevents them from taking the time to learn the critical things.
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
March 7, 2020 at 2:02 am
Jeff Moden wrote:Michael L John wrote:They are not even Excel jockeys. One of them has a LAW degree. she just passed her bar exam and is not going into law. The rest have psychology degrees.
At least the ones with the Law degrees will know what "It Depends" means. 😀
The frustrating thing is that clearly these folks put in the time to get their degrees, and be subject matter experts in their chosen fields of study. The time they spend learning the technology, even the basic concepts, has been minimal. It's not as if they are arrogant sots who think they know it all. It's a good group to work with. There's just this "mental block" or something that prevents them from taking the time to learn the critical things.
Understood. These people are very intelligent but have no intelligence related to their current jobs. You know this as well as I... you must first help them unlearn what they've learned, then (almost simultaneously) excite them about what they can learn and teach them the right way. If you don't both excite them and teach them the right way, they will fail and you will have failed. The "mental block" you speak of is due to the fact that they do not yet know what is possible and so are not yet excited. Both excitement and enjoyment are critical in motivating people to learn. And yeah, it can be really tough to accomplish such motivation... it takes special care by a special person and I know you... you ARE that special person. Who else would run a special track for newbies at the Pittsburgh SQL Saturday year after year and act as the father for 3 grandchildren?
You've always been a teacher, Michaeal... rise to the occasion once more and help people be exceptional.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 7, 2020 at 5:33 am
I hate to bring any political debate into things, but when one talked climate change and implied anyone could learn to code...and completely change careers easily.
My Imagination ran wild with the 100 or so people within our company who when they moved on I was tasked with fixing something of theirs that broke. Building something that is flexible to changing requirements, while giving correct information, is a real skill. Some of the examples I ran across were as bad as the interviewees many of you have run into.
One of my early mentoring experiences was with an Excel Jockey who had some potential. He was fairly good, although he lacked some out of the box thinking. Dynamically splitting data out based on the business units (10, but some days you may only have 8 or 9): and dynamically changing the sizes of named ranges, allowed the report to generated daily. So although he was good, it opened up his eyes to so much more to learn.
I was fortunate enough to have access to several skilled programmers and was able to discuss challenges at a technical level, and then able to add what was needed to create a solution. Forever grateful to the sound advice - had these programmers not been so skilled, I would have struggled.
Law Degree and passed the bar - as you imply, it says something or maybe nothing. If they understand logic, I see hope. Part of what I see is can you talk a language they understand? For example, a visual data base diagram might be something that helps them see the files, the proper joins, and how the files are related (along with those that aren’t). Sending them server names, ports, etc. - maybe showing them how to connect to each in Excel might be helpful.i
One of the things we ran across all the time - the business would talk their language, and the programmer his. Requirements, although documented, had holes (i.e. bugs). that were addressed during dev and qa. But sometimes testing was not thorough enough and these were only discovered in production as more eyes looked at the data. The better the requirements were understood and agreed upon by both parties, the better the final product. Bridging both the technical and the business is part skill, but also art. On both sides.
I remember the discussion between the ERP manager and the data warehouse manager. John - the ERP Manager said I was a loose cannon. Smart, could code, and access to everything. His worst nightmare. Terry DW manager said “exactly why he belongs in IT, so we can give him direction”. I was immediately moved to Terry’s group. John quickly learned why Terry liked what he saw. I was talking to one of his server admins about something I needed, The admin was matching virus scans to servers manually. And complaining how he hated this - their list was static, and servers always being replaced. I built a quick little app in Excel that pulled servers from AD (current and dynamic), imported the weekly scan and matched it up. More accurate, and went from a several hour pain to a couple seconds. Same problem, but someone with a completely different perspective came up with very different solution. Maybe part of it was I was a database guy, and only had to look at the problem. So to me, it only appeared as two data sources, and what are we trying to do.
March 7, 2020 at 1:46 pm
Same problem, but someone with a completely different perspective came up with very different solution. Maybe part of it was I was a database guy, and only had to look at the problem. So to me, it only appeared as two data sources, and what are we trying to do.
This is actually a fairly rare skill, IMHO, especially when it comes to defining requirements. It seems to be common amongst many of the folks here on SSC (including you) but not so much in real life or even on some of the other forums. It first requires one to understand that they're in a box and then both the desire and skill to get out of the box and KISS (Keep It Super Simple) the solution in the process. I also think a lot of people think that flexibility requires a bunch of fancy code when, at least to me, it usually means keeping it as simple as possible... at least in T-SQL and especially when it comes to handling data, which is almost everything we do.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 7, 2020 at 2:32 pm
Part of that skill was developed early on in my career. Learning to break down a process into smaller reusable processes, then add a little bit of code to determine when to maybe branch out to adapt to a nuance in the data. Some self taught, some through discussion with programmers and the DW manager. He probably had the greatest influence, as he was the best data architect I have ever known. When I moved into that group full time, he had a similar skill. I was a JDE SME, so having done reports off this, combined with DW information, and back end knowledge of how JDE was setup, I was an end to end wealth of knowledge to be picked when developing new measures and dimensions. Always interesting to me determining where we put a trigger to capture changes. And since we were a lights out nightly refresh, error handling was key. JDE had very little to enforce referential integrity. And some times errors in data entry were not corrected until the next day.
Lots of smart people out there, and learning when and how to ask them the right questions was a big part. The application of this to code developed over time. Learned a lot here too from people like you.
Forever thankful for this site.
March 7, 2020 at 3:04 pm
Thanks for the feedback, Greg. I totally agree... this site has been a staple of knowledge for me, as well. I don't believe that I'd have been able to do some of things I've done at work without this wonderful community. Some of the problems that people have posted questions about have ultimately come in real handle. There's no place in the world where you can get such a preponderance of real life problems to solve as practice.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 7, 2020 at 4:09 pm
JDE was a mess. I worked there and their philosophy (with 100s of developers on a product) was write crappy SQL once and have it run poorly on every platform. Couldn't get developers to think otherwise, and managers didn't think hiring even 1 person for each platform to tune code would help. Crazy.
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