Because of recent staff turnover in our department at work, we created a list of technical skills that we need to support our department's in-house developed database applications. These were skills like SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle Forms, J2EE, AJAX, Javascript, Unix shell scripting, ... Each person in our department assessed their individual level of expertise in each skill. We then assigned a weight as to which skills we needed to fill immediately and which skills we could wait on for a while.
After two passes of looking at the skills list and assigning weights, I noticed that there were no analysis and design skills like Data Modeling and Data Normalization or modeling tools or methodologies. We had completely forgot to include these, so I suggested adding them. All of us were thinking of application development skills and not analysis and design skills.
That led me the question of, "Is it just my particular situation or is it a general trend in the IT industry that Data Normalization and Data Modeling skills/methodologies like ER diagrams are not being used as much as they used to like back in the 1990's?" Or is Data Normalization such a common skill nowadays that people creating tables just automatically do it? Is it now being taught in college?
Mike
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3 comments:
I find there's fewer custom apps and more third-party apps where you add modules. Or you are converting/upgrading an existing relational data model.
Either way there's less scope for actually building a fresh data model.
Gary put the finger on the dot, certainly as far as our market goes in NSW, Australia.
The vast majority of our applications are from third parties. The few that are inhouse are just customizations of existing packages or upgrades of pre-existing.
IOW: no need for design analysis or any other design-oriented skills.
Plenty of need for logistic, capacity planning, project skills.
This not to say that "design skills are dead": nothing could be further from the truth. Someone has to sit down and analyze and design the applications that are being purchased! They don't just materialize out of thin air.
What has changed is really the location where the skills are needed.
Since posting this blog, it has become house cleaning time at work. Ironicly I got assigned two cabinet drawers to dig into and through out anything no longer useful. The drawers have analysis software (IEW) and proceedings from old CASE conferences. Our department no longer uses IEW. Our department has kept the software for 10 years because we may need to view mainframe application designs and analysis, but no one knows where the IEW analysis files are. Also the installation disks are 4.5 floppies. None of our PCs have 4.5" floppies. Time to pick it in the trash.
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