Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 12:20 pm
Welcome to Business Intelligence by the seat of your pants..
Just peachy, isn't it.
Page 1 of 2
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 12:32 pm
Sometimes it's not our choice. Due to staff reduction our DS "expert", (someone who was officially trained, and had years of experience) was reassigned to another company. He transferred his his duties and some of his knowledge to someone with no training and no experience. Guess what! Now I, as a M204 DBA, with no experience and no training in DS get to inherit it.
Just peachy, isn't it.
Just peachy, isn't it.
Re: YOU DON'T NEED TRAINING
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 12:48 pm
Because people back then pretty much are required to know their stuff, or get washed out quickly.tomengers wrote:I didn’t see stuff like this 10 years ago. Is this blind trust in the tool … outsized ego … lack of time … or what? All 3?
Now computer science is considered a 'money' major, like lawyers, and doctors. Do the training, and you are home free! People who took up this career for the money generally provide a lack of motivation and understanding of the tasks involved.
The true geeks are the ones you REALLY want to hire. They may have the same type of attitude, but a quick lesson would shut them up, and get their head screwed on straight. I know, because I used to have that attitude, and that was fixed by several... 'generous' gurus I knows.
-T.J.
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 12:56 pm
I really hate that kind of situation. That is why I try my best to teach everyone here about what I am doing. Some don't care, and others have a hard time understanding due to lack of experience with a lot of things.b540glenn wrote:Now I, as a M204 DBA, with no experience and no training in DS get to inherit it.
*sigh*
-T.J.
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 12:56 pm
Exactly, Tom.
If the tool is good, you don't need training. That's like saying if you build the best hammer, you don't need to know how to build a house. That better be a realllly good hammer. Every step of a warehouse project is critical, whether it is functional requirements gathering, mappings, target model design, BI reporting, ETL, whatever. There's no software project that can overcome the inadequacies of the architects.
I could design the worst data model that nobody could query, much less load. That that point, the ETL tool, the database, and the hardware won't do you any good. We are not running on HAL 9000's here, where the software can guess your intent and rewrite the model and ETL code so that inspite of the architect the best solution is arrived at.
There's a significant number of consulting firms that are hopping on the ETL consulting bandwagon. If people think I'm infatuated with Kimball, they're wrong. But, IMO, his books are the fastest and easiest way for people to:
(1) realize they really are working on something complex, it's not just about pushing around bytes
(2) realize they had better build on the work done before them, otherwise they're just discovering issues that already have solutions (slowly changing dimensions, surrogate keys, atomic level warehouses, hub-n-spoke, blah blah blah)
(3) learn
If the tool is good, you don't need training. That's like saying if you build the best hammer, you don't need to know how to build a house. That better be a realllly good hammer. Every step of a warehouse project is critical, whether it is functional requirements gathering, mappings, target model design, BI reporting, ETL, whatever. There's no software project that can overcome the inadequacies of the architects.
I could design the worst data model that nobody could query, much less load. That that point, the ETL tool, the database, and the hardware won't do you any good. We are not running on HAL 9000's here, where the software can guess your intent and rewrite the model and ETL code so that inspite of the architect the best solution is arrived at.
There's a significant number of consulting firms that are hopping on the ETL consulting bandwagon. If people think I'm infatuated with Kimball, they're wrong. But, IMO, his books are the fastest and easiest way for people to:
(1) realize they really are working on something complex, it's not just about pushing around bytes
(2) realize they had better build on the work done before them, otherwise they're just discovering issues that already have solutions (slowly changing dimensions, surrogate keys, atomic level warehouses, hub-n-spoke, blah blah blah)
(3) learn
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 1:12 pm
uh thanks, I think..The true geeks are the ones you REALLY want to hire.
Go Pyton!!
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 1:31 pm
Okay. True geeks that can spell.1stpoint wrote:Go Pyton!!
Guess you won't hire me if I asked.
-T.J.
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 1:55 pm
[Sometimes it's not our choice ... Guess what! Now I, as a M204 DBA, with no experience and no training in DS get to inherit it. ]
Glenn ... I have a good bit of empathy for your situation, but you are now in an excellent position to demand training to ensure the integrity of the corporate data. I take serious issue with the (many, many) folks I see in this forum asking questions such as "How do I use a hash file?". These folks know there are manuals, but it's much easier to ask someone else for help. This used to be called "lazy". I suspect now it's "efficient". One of the things I learned early on was to do your own homework and then, and only then, ask for help.
... tom
Glenn ... I have a good bit of empathy for your situation, but you are now in an excellent position to demand training to ensure the integrity of the corporate data. I take serious issue with the (many, many) folks I see in this forum asking questions such as "How do I use a hash file?". These folks know there are manuals, but it's much easier to ask someone else for help. This used to be called "lazy". I suspect now it's "efficient". One of the things I learned early on was to do your own homework and then, and only then, ask for help.
... tom
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 1:57 pm
Who needs training! We'll just ship all the work offshore!
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 2:13 pm
tomengers wrote:[Sometimes it's not our choice ... Guess what! Now I, as a M204 DBA, with no experience and no training in DS get to inherit it. ]
Glenn ... I have a good bit of empathy for your situation, but you are now in an excellent position to demand training to ensure the integrity of the corporate data. I take serious issue with the (many, many) folks I see in this forum asking questions such as "How do I use a hash file?". These folks know there are manuals, but it's much easier to ask someone else for help. This used to be called "lazy". I suspect now it's "efficient". One of the things I learned early on was to do your own homework and then, and only then, ask for help.
... tom
The one thing about the training that i got from the vender...of any product is that it is broad and not targeted at my real live troubles. Thats why when I find a forum I am soo happy. I pick up things fast but other peoples mistakes make it easier for me to avoid them
Jim
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 2:14 pm
There's another saying that goes like :
A proffesional can overcome a bad software tool but an excelent software tool cannot overcome an untrained/non-proffesional/dumb programmer.
The thing with BI (I'm in this s... for about 7 years on & off and was involved in more than 20 DWH projects) is that the face of such a project is the query & report tools,OLAP tools and such and the HR that's doing this stuff are DWH "experts" and for their next project they're hired as ETL programmers or DWH designers or such. I'm sorry but to be a super SQL programmer only without being a real programmer on a 3GL is not good enough (Those guys don't know about files,semaphores,IPC and much more thing like those) - I really preffer a 50 years old plus cobol programmer over a half his age Oracle & SQL hotshot. The first will do ETL in Cobol, DataStage or even DTS much better and faster than the latter.
A getting old geek
A proffesional can overcome a bad software tool but an excelent software tool cannot overcome an untrained/non-proffesional/dumb programmer.
The thing with BI (I'm in this s... for about 7 years on & off and was involved in more than 20 DWH projects) is that the face of such a project is the query & report tools,OLAP tools and such and the HR that's doing this stuff are DWH "experts" and for their next project they're hired as ETL programmers or DWH designers or such. I'm sorry but to be a super SQL programmer only without being a real programmer on a 3GL is not good enough (Those guys don't know about files,semaphores,IPC and much more thing like those) - I really preffer a 50 years old plus cobol programmer over a half his age Oracle & SQL hotshot. The first will do ETL in Cobol, DataStage or even DTS much better and faster than the latter.
A getting old geek
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 3:08 pm
I wish. We are in the middle of another budget reduction and one of the first things that they cut was training.tomengers wrote:...Glenn ... I have a good bit of empathy for your situation, but you are now in an excellent position to demand training to ensure the integrity of the corporate data....
...I see in this forum asking questions such as "How do I use a hash file?". These folks know there are manuals,...
Seeing that I have almost zero chance of getting formal training, please forgive me if I ask these types of questions. I promise that I will try to find it in the manual (V5 books but we're on V6) and online help first.
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 3:27 pm
If someone would get Ascential's permission then I would like to post either flash or avi files which would walk you through DataStage basics. I have never taken a class on DataStage so I don't think they should be upset like Ray and Ken which wrote the classes. We did this recently and would like to clean it up and make it available.
It was posted on this web site that Ascential will not allow screen shots of any of Ascential's products to be posted on this or any other site. If someone can get a waiver then we could provide really good examples on FAQ.
Kim.
It was posted on this web site that Ascential will not allow screen shots of any of Ascential's products to be posted on this or any other site. If someone can get a waiver then we could provide really good examples on FAQ.
Kim.
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 4:12 pm
If you are an employee of a company, I don't sweat helping you out. What irritates me are posts from "consultants" for "CRM/ERP/DataWarehousing" agencies.b540glenn wrote: Seeing that I have almost zero chance of getting formal training, please forgive me if I ask these types of questions.
I'll get a call from a firm saying we need a senior data warehouse technical person with DS experience, as well as modeling and architecture experience on TB+ size warehouses. Rate is $45-$65/hour.
Are you s'ing me? But the story isn't over, this actually happened to me. I got a call for a project from a headhunter and I told them my rate, then they said they'll get back to me. About 3 weeks later I get a email sent directly to me. It's from a guy starting on a TB+ size warehouse in the same city, same project specs for that call I took from the headhunter. He want's to know how to about best practices and such using DS. He also wanted clarification on some modeling questions, like WHAT'S A STAR SCHEMA.
Shoot me, shoot me now. This is part of the frustration some of us feel. We are being undercut by 1/2 by newbies blowing smoke to clients to get in, then they appear on this forum or others asking questions to help keep them from being thrown out on their arse.
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 4:30 pm
Kenneth
Tell us how you really feel. It is a crazy marketplace right now.
Kim.
Tell us how you really feel. It is a crazy marketplace right now.
Kim.