Cranky Curmudgeons

  • wayne Freeman-369096 wrote:

    Congrats on the license upgrade. one more level to go.

    We aren't Cranky, it's just hard to get people to understand that everything that's new isn't always better or cheaper just different.

    I love it and 100% agree.  "Change is inevitable...  change for the better is not".

    They also think us old DBAs are hard of hearing... we're not.  We tired of listening. 😀

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Chris Harshman wrote:

    Grant Fritchey wrote:

    LadyRuna wrote:

    Get off my lawn.

    Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

    This is my lawn. You get off my lawn.

    Oh, and test your backups on the way.

    Can we find a way to use optimistic locking so that we can all use the lawn when we need to without blocking others out?

    You had better not be suggesting a NOLOCK hint on my lawn. That's a sure fire way to get the dogs called.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • Ralph Hightower wrote:

    44 years as a software developer; starting from a mainframe using PL/1, then programming assembler on Intel 8080 8-bit microprocessors, to C++ and now C# on Intel servers. I've used Cygwin at work for extracting data from 800 MB files for reports and used awk to read an Active Directory file to create a CSV file for importing into a new system.

    UNIX? Been there, done that. I enjoy working with UNIX. My wife bought me a Sun SPARCStation IPX at a salvage sale to keep my UNIX skills up and I ran that for long while until the internal SCSI hard drive failed. I've had Linux systems at home. I need to build my home network back up with Linux systems and add Windows Server and SQL Server.

    Likewise, I want to get a Rasberry Pi. I read an article on setting up a VPN for it.

    I hope to retire in 2021 and hopefully get my DEC VAXStation II/GPX up and running a BSD version of UNIX on it.

    Best of luck on that. Sounds like a project.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • Jeff Moden wrote:

    wayne Freeman-369096 wrote:

    Congrats on the license upgrade. one more level to go.

    We aren't Cranky, it's just hard to get people to understand that everything that's new isn't always better or cheaper just different.

    I love it and 100% agree.  "Change is inevitable...  change for the better is not".

    They also think us old DBAs are hard of hearing... we're not.  We tired of listening. 😀

    And speaking of cranky curmudgeons, HEY JEFF!

    I said it loudly so you could hear me. Ha! It's true, not all change is for the better. However, I do think, sometimes, some of us, not all of us and not all the time, can be resistant to change because it's change. I think it's something we all may struggle with time to time. I know I do.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • A couple good quotes here!

    "We just need to be careful of using the crankiness appropriately so we're not seen as blockers, but enablers." - Grant

    I love this thought!  Words to live by.

    "if your DBA is fully charged then we put the B back in BCC" - MVDBA

    I think I am going to put both of these on my 2020 Resolutions list.  2019 was an exhausting year for me... I was getting really cranky.  Fortunately, 2020 is starting out well, and I am breathing again.

    Thanks for inspiring me.  Also, that part about sending really short messages really long distances via radio waves is fascinating!  Keep us posted!

  • I think I count as a BCC, been doing SQL, Oracle, Sybase, among others.  Now I'm still the new Tech guy learning UNIX, Hadoop, Spark, Python, PowerShell, and PowerBI.  I like to think of myself as using 120% of my existing Knowledge set, meaning I'm always trying to add new things into this old brain.

    I've also been hearing that the DBA position is obsolete for at least 15 years and companies are still trying to find DBA's to fill open positions.  Where I get cranky is when new developers and experienced ones, who should know better, write code against a database and don't cover basic coding 101 skills.  They tell me the SQL server is slow and when I do a trace, the application is sending 100's of lines of bad SQL to the database.  Half the time they are using a framework and only see the SQL when traces capture it.

    I think the titles, terms, and skills are changing but they will always need DBA's of some kind.

  • jarick 15608 wrote:

      They tell me the SQL server is slow and when I do a trace, the application is sending 100's of lines of bad SQL to the database.  Half the time they are using a framework and only see the SQL when traces capture it.

    this is why we keep shouting "USE STORED PROCS" and they say "yeah, but that's really hard in an entity framework"

    I will kill whoever invented nhibernate - it has just made half the dev team say "yeah but we don't need to worry about the SQL anymore" - and my favourite...….. (I need to compose myself for this one)…. "so, if we decided to move from Microsoft to Oracle, we could just flick a switch"....

    have you ever been in a business where you switch platforms? - it requires months of planning and  years to even get the CAPEX signed off. - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I'm am now back to CC

    MVDBA

  • Grant Fritchey wrote:

    You had better not be suggesting a NOLOCK hint on my lawn. That's a sure fire way to get the dogs called.

    Oh no sir, Mr. Fritchey!  NOLOCK is like the neighborhood bully, he comes in our yards and steals our ball.

  • RE: "have you ever been in a business where you switch platforms? - it requires months of planning and years to even get the CAPEX signed off. - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I'm am now back to CC"

    Every time I've seen someone propose SQL Server to Oracle, they change their mind when they see the licensing costs and all the crap you have to deal with on Oracle Audits.  Oracle has a great RDBMS, their business model is what's killing them in the marketplace.

  • jarick 15608 wrote:

    I think the titles, terms, and skills are changing but they will always need DBA's of some kind.

    Yes, yes and yes!

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • In today's meeting of the entire IT staff, we were discussing how interruptions prevent us from getting projects completed.

    My boss, using me as an example, stated that I was too nice that that I typically drop everything to help people when then come running.

    I told him that if he ever says I am too nice in a public meeting again that we are going to have words.  He's ruining my reputation!

    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/

  • I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for helping to justify my existence as a CC since I took my first and only IT Manager position back in 1974.  I survived as such (a CC) through a number of positions, and admittedly did not survive as such through others.  All in all, it was worth it, and I would even venture to claim that even the ones I did not survive did in fact benefit from my being of such disposition.

    I would submit that ALL of the business ventures, large and small, of which I was a star CC have continued to grow and benefit.

    If you have never been ushered out of your office by an HR representative, "you ain't seen nothin' yet".  Invariably I benefited more in the long run.

     

    Every boat needs an anchor.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by  skeleton567.

    Rick
    Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )

  • jarick 15608 wrote:

    I've also been hearing that the DBA position is obsolete for at least 15 years and companies are still trying to find DBA's to fill open positions.  Where I get cranky is when new developers and experienced ones, who should know better, write code against a database and don't cover basic coding 101 skills.  They tell me the SQL server is slow and when I do a trace, the application is sending 100's of lines of bad SQL to the database.  Half the time they are using a framework and only see the SQL when traces capture it.

    I think the titles, terms, and skills are changing but they will always need DBA's of some kind.

    Jarrick, I think you nailed it.  Possibly the original purpose of the DBA position was intended to 'administer databases'.  But I believe that the probable future understanding is going to be in terms of the skills you mention or allude to, those of understanding the internal working of SQL and being able yourself develop good code and to mentor and oversee those who do it as a sideline of application development.  After all, the vast majority of application developers are not going to have a main goal of good database code, nor are they going to have the desire, and yes, the understanding required to perform this vital activity.

    Thus, the position of DBA may perhaps morph more into fulfilling this function.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by  skeleton567.
    • This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by  skeleton567.

    Rick
    Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )

  • Grant Fritchey wrote:

    Jeff Moden wrote:

    wayne Freeman-369096 wrote:

    Congrats on the license upgrade. one more level to go.

    We aren't Cranky, it's just hard to get people to understand that everything that's new isn't always better or cheaper just different.

    I love it and 100% agree.  "Change is inevitable...  change for the better is not".

    They also think us old DBAs are hard of hearing... we're not.  We tired of listening. 😀

    And speaking of cranky curmudgeons, HEY JEFF!

    I said it loudly so you could hear me. Ha! It's true, not all change is for the better. However, I do think, sometimes, some of us, not all of us and not all the time, can be resistant to change because it's change. I think it's something we all may struggle with time to time. I know I do.

    I've been around a long time and will freely admit that I cast a jaundiced eye to changes mostly because most of them have been at the cost of some fairly extreme costs in process or keystrokes with either no new functionality or at the cost of reduced functionality and/or increased lost learning and lost time devoted to discovering the problems such changes have caused and either fixing them or creating work arounds for.  A lot of changes have been a proverbial flash in the pan while others have caused damage, especially as of late with a lot of the supposed "it just runs faster" changes that Microsoft has heaped upon us.

    Even when they do come up with something useful, they release it before it's actually ready for prime time.  It seems like they sometimes have the attitude of "We've gotta do something... even if it's wrong."

    You already know that's true from a recent post of your own... look at Column Store. 😉

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff Moden wrote:

    I've been around a long time and will freely admit that I cast a jaundiced eye to changes mostly because most of them have been at the cost of some fairly extreme costs in process or keystrokes with either no new functionality or at the cost of reduced functionality and/or increased lost learning and lost time devoted to discovering the problems such changes have caused and either fixing them or creating work arounds for.  A lot of changes have been a proverbial flash in the pan while others have caused damage, especially as of late with a lot of the supposed "it just runs faster" changes that Microsoft has heaped upon us.

    Even when they do come up with something useful, they release it before it's actually ready for prime time.  It seems like they sometimes have the attitude of "We've gotta do something... even if it's wrong."

    You already know that's true from a recent post of your own... look at Column Store. 😉

    You know I agree with you (mostly, ha!). It does seem like it takes them two or three times to get stuff right, assuming they try two or three times. It's almost like the old saw of "don't upgrade until they release a service pack". Don't start the new tech until you see a second version with updates.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

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