Why did you decide to become a DBA/SQL Programmer?
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Oh, BTW, I forgot to answer your original question - how I got here!
You guessed it - some programming in school, but main education and first 5 years of career as an engineer. Began developing database backed apps to automate engineering tasks, continued for several years until one day I said, "hey, I like databases/development as much as engineering (and there's more money in it)" so I found a job as a DBA/Developer a couple years ago where I used my Access skills to learn SQL Server.
My newest challenge is learning Oracle (past 6 months) - loving every minute of it.
JasonL -
It's funny, people in the IT or CS cirriculm in college don't do much with databases, however, I have a BS in Business Administration and was required to take severak IS classes including Database normaliztion and design. Of course, relational databases. The logic was that a relational database was an end-user tool and they needed to understand. LOL
William H. Hoover
Louisville, Ky
William H. Hoover
Louisville, Ky
sweeper_bill@yahoo.com -
I started off as a VB programmer, and eventually got assigned responsibility for keeping our SQL Server running, due to the network admins being to busy to handle it. After being downsized when our company was bought out and closed, I took another programming job for a few months, but figured out three things:
1) Windows programming languages are very "flavor of the week" (VB, HTML, DHTML, XML, Java, Interdev, .NET, blah blah blah). You may have the hot skills right now, but will you be doing anything other than maintenance work in two years?
2) I regularly see DBAs over 50. It's rare to see programmers that age. I'm only 31, but it's plain to see that age-bias is alive and well in corporate IT programming groups.
3) Programmers come and go, based upon the economy and the amount of development a shop wants to do in-house. But just about every midsized or larger business needs a DBA around regardless of the amount of development work.
So, I decided that more money, greater long-term job security, and (generally) better hours as a DBA was the way to go, and haven't regretted it since 🙂
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I was a VB6 programmer. SQL for me was just a "select statements" tool for ADO.Then I took SQL7 certification course and realize how I much more programming is there, started intensive conversion to stored procedures, got into complicated stuff. Now, my boss gives me more and more tasks on SQL and it's a piece of cake for me. It made my life less complicated now when I could do most of my coding in SQL and only pass few parameters from VB.
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I've been in IT management for 5 years. Because it's a small department I wore a lot of hats, one of them database guy (Access and SQL). I miss the hands-on coding and problem-solving sessions that sometimes really racked my brain with challenge. I felt extremly satisfied doing that kind of work. Now, I hire people to do it. Like I said, I miss it and I'm seriously considering getting back into database programming -- specifically a DBA with expert knowledge of SQL. I feel I'd be more relevent to my current employer (or another employer should something not work out) if I became an expert at one thing instead of good at several things -- like I am now. Besides, managing is not what's all cracked up to be.
One guy posted three things he noticed about programmers/dbas and it made a lot of sense to me. Pretty much made me really reconsider my direction. I've been working with SQL (6.5 and 7.0) for four years but only about 5-10% of my day could be dedicated to it. Because of that the database has become dirty. I'm now considering MCDBA certification and a refocusing of my career so I can actually feel like I'm contributing something a lot bigger than what I currently feel I'm contributing.
I've always loved working with raw data and turning it into meaningful information. And like that poster eluded to, the SQL langauge is not flavor-of-the-week. You really can't go wrong with DBA certification (and experience!) with expert knowledge of SQL in today's business -- no matter what business you're in. Databases rule the world! 🙂
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My Guru (a class fellow and Oracle Teacher) asked me to learn database programming. Then he taught me Oracle 7. Why? because what I see here is more than 80% of software development involves databases so why not learn it. Now I develop software using SQL Server. And yes I enjoy it b/c it needs lots of information, reading and research.
Regards,
KAS
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After school, I studied 4 years InformationTechnology. With this I got a job as a computer technician, fixing PC's. I was fixing PC's for about 5 years, before the oppertunity to get involved in MS SQL. One of the DBA's was leaving and they wondered if any of the techies would like to get involved in databases. At that time I didn't know there was a thing like a DBA. I made myself available for the position and got it. Now 2 years later, I am still glad I did it.
Gert
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It is 11 years I am working with database especially Oracle. After handling so much of problem with that I started working on SQLServer. It is been more than 3 years in this. It is kind of good to compare both Oracle and SQLServer. Both have their own advantage and disadvantage.
I am not restricted to database. Datamodelling is another skill I have and I use ERWin and Oracle designer.
I also do coding in EJB and JAVA.
Sometimes I write JSP, SERVLET, and SWING application to help users accessing database.
I have been bitten by the .NET bug recently and into C# programming. I enjoy that because it is similar to JAVA.
How I became a DBA?
Simple, I know how to create a problem and solve it. Sometimes it becomes too messy and I logon to SQLServerCentral.com
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I was the Senior Techie at Crystal Decisions Europe (you know the Crystal Reports people) and databases are my thing. Had to move jobs though due to relocating myself to be with my fiancee. So I decided I might just be a DBA for a while. Although I`ve ended up a VB programmer aswell.
Andy.
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Andy, don't feel bad.
Because of my previous experience as a systems administrator, I've been transitioned to an "Enterprise Systems Architect," which basically means I'm the one who gets the phone call when a server is sick while maintaining quite a few of my DBA duties. It keeps the day lively!
K. Brian Kelley
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
Hi
I'm a fresh one in this. Since 3 years now I'm responsable for all ICT matters (through Phone, Voice Response , Access database, NT Platforms, etc..) Since 1 1/2 Year now we have SQL Server 7.0. Since I don't have any education (I'm a social assistent) and I'm the only one in this company (25 heads) it is difficult to learn. But I find it amazing what SQL server and T-SQL can do, so i'm learning on my own now how to program a database through VB6.0.
In May I will follow a course : Microsoft's SQL 7.0 Accelarator.
My dream is to automate processes and create extra triggers in our ERP.
Kind regards
Jeffrey
JV
JV -
For me it was a deliberate change of direction. I'd been a programmer for some 24 years, starting out on the TRS-80 and CBM machines, working through most known bases and languages.
After this time most programming languages became second nature, and whilst solving the logic was still a challenge at time, the program design was losing it's appeal.
The company I work for took my advice and installed SQL when we migrated away from Visual FoxPro, and I kind of took the decision to take over, create the roll and move comfortably into it.
It's a new challenge, new ideas, new concepts, still some programming with the T-SQL code, but enough variation to keep me happy for quite some years yet (untill I get bored again anyway).
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It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the Beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. -
I may be one of the few that new I wanted to be a DBA starting in college. I went back to get my CS degree at the advanced age of 38. At that time I had no idea that the tech market was so hot. I needed an elective and thought that the database course looked interesting. I knew from that time forward that I wanted to be a DBA. I took the long route starting as a systems administrator, then web developer, SQL programmer and finally DBA!! I love my job and can't imagine doing anything else.
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It is said that school teaches you how things should be done but not necessarily how they are done, and experience teaches you how things are done but not necessarily how they should be done. With this in mind, let's just say that I've had an awful lot of experience.
I started out in 1984 as a maintenance programmer on IBM mainframes, serving as a sergeant in the USAF. The Air Force people did a wonderful job of training considering the constraints within which they worked, but the real training started at the duty station. The Air Force put me in a database "data mover" shop and this has been my destiny ever since... whenever someone spots "database" on my resume, that's where I get stowed.
After separating, I hired on first with Martin Marietta and then with TRW, working various government projects as a database programmer. Relational database was just an incoming blip on the horizon: My earlier experience was primarily in navigating IDMS network database schemas, or manipulating data in Model 204 (haven't seen that one in years, wonder if it's still alive somewhere).
In 1991, as my first exposure to relational database and SQL, I designed a database in Sybase that replaced the legacy IDMS database. I didn't have much "book learnin'" about database, but I was street-smart and (unlike most of the programmers) understood that normalization, in general, was a good thing so long as you kept an eye on performance.
My next project (1996), a takeover/conversion of an Oracle application from the Pentagon, put me for the first time in the role of being a true DBA. I was armed with grim determination and about zero knowledge. The incumbent program manager at the Pentagon did not want to relinquish control, and made our lives exceedingly difficult. He confided to my boss, in unctuous contempt, "You won't need a DBA to pull this off, you'll need a magician." My boss smiled and said, "I've got the Devil himself." (The Devil himself, that's me!) The street-smarts really came in handy, assisted by the fact that the "enemy" was a bunch of Luddites who had no idea what they were up against, in terms of the leverage afforded us by the newer relational technologies. I was General "One-Eye", and our enemies were the Army of the Blind. It was a rout.
I took a job as the DBA at an HMO in 1999, my first exposure to SQL Server (6.5). It was "old home" week, since it looked so much like its Sybase ancestor. I've bounced around a couple of times since, back to Oracle at American Management Systems, and now back to SQL Server (7.0 and 2000) as the DBA at Virginia Beach Public Schools.
FWIW, my personal opinion is 1) yes, Oracle is technically the better DBMS, and 2) yes, Microsoft SQL Server is destined to rule. Comparing the two is like comparing a Rolls-Royce (Oracle) to a Chevrolet (SQL Server). Not everyone needs a Rolls, but if you need one and can afford one, you should have it. For most of us lesser folks operating on real budgets, a Chevrolet does 99% of what a Rolls does and 100% of what we need, at pennies on the dollar. Like Rolls, Oracle is destined for the niche market. Also, ominously for the Oracle folks, I've noticed that all the things that I still find irritating about SQL Server are the same things I found irritating about Sybase -- and those irritations are being inexorably, one after the other, expunged with each new release. Also, Bill Gates has understood from the beginning that "easy-to-use" sells better than the arcane. Oracle is first and foremost a consulting company -- for years, they had no incentive to make their DBMS easy to use or understand, and every incentive to keep it complicated, the better for selling their consulting services. Oracle shows signs of addressing the "ease of use" issues, but it's noteworthy that the best GUI for database development in Oracle is a third-party product named "TOAD".
Edited by - Lee Dise on 04/29/2002 08:21:11 AM
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For me, it was by accident. I started in the early 80's with the PICK environment (does anybody remember it?) with BASIC and the 4GL called ENGLISH which is very SQL-like. Then on to Data General's Business BASIC, back to PICK, on to VAX COBOL, then healthcare interface engine work. Then 3+ years ago, we decided to install a SQL Server-based Datawarehouse. Now I don't want to think about or work with anything else. Except the MBA that I'm one year away from getting.
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