Are We Dinosaurs?

Let's talk about the elephant in the room right up front. Yes, I'm old. I remember when Buck Woody was a little tyke on the day the last of the Tyranosaurs died (I'm older than Buck). So, I'm not asking if I'm old. Yes. I'm old. No, I'm asking if that massive meteor strike over the horizon is likely to cause us, collectively, any issues.

What do I mean by "us"?

By "us" I generally mean people working with relational data. Pick your poison from the big four: Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server or PostgreSQL. They're called the big four because they are the most used data management tools by a long shot (tiny side note: not the most data under management, that's taken up by search engines, videos and other, bigger data sets, but very different discussion). You work to design, build, maintain databases running on one or more of these platforms, on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment. For our purposes today, you are "us".

What do I mean by a massive meteor strike?

All the other data platforms springing up these days. Fabric anyone? Cosmos? Pick your other poison. I was recently at Techorama Netherlands (along with Techorama Belgium, one of my favorite events). It's primarily a developer's conference, but they have data tracks as well. It's also a bit more of a DotNet, Microsoft focused conference (not entirely, but more than not). There's a lot to love about these events, but one of the things I love most is that we see a lot of what people are either working on, or, what they want to work on. And I'm here to tell you, they're not working on, nor do they want to work on relational databases. Everything that wasn't going to or coming from Fabric, was absolutely going to or coming from ANY other kind of data store.

At 61 years of age, I am starting to eyeball some form of retirement. Because of this, I'm not sweating the meteor. However, if I were even five years younger, I would absolutely be looking around to see if I needed to shift my tech stack in order to ensure continued employment. I'm not saying we're there. I'm not saying you should be moving to something other than a strict relational data store. I am saying, it's probably not a bad idea, especially if you're younger than me, to be keeping an eye on these trends. Personally, I think relational is probably good for another 30 years or so, minimum. However, tech can shift. Fast. It's worth assessing, regularly, if you're still on a good path. I think people who work on relational data stores are probably due for an assessment. That's all.

As an old person, I've watched a number of tech stacks arrive and then leave. People who were smart, moved and learned. But some people, either aged out with the dying tech stack, or, were forced out when that stack went away. You really don't want to be that last group, so, just keep an eye out for meteors.

Grant Fritchey

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