I enjoy immensely reading Cary's book, but I have some questions that 
I want to ask publicly. Recently, I made a comment about Chris Lawson's
book being a "Dale Carnegie book for a DBA" and now I see that Cary is
also advising feeding the hungry business users ("buy him a sandwich").

It is true that many problems are consequences of inadequate
communication, general lack of business knowledge in the "computer geek
culture" and even disdain for it, but, in my opinion, many problems are
also a consequence of incompetent managers ("damagers"), office
politics, and hard times. Hard times present problems because people do
not want to pay for a competent DBA but frequently hire a shaman or a
witch doctor who "improves" on the system based on snake oil type
techniques. If I cannot get more money then some bozo after a
performance tuning course (example from Chris Lawson's book), why bother
reading and investing into myself? A cynical geekish attitude and the
"old boys" network will do just as well.
Characteristics of the "performance analyst", as described in the book,
are the ones of the field general (has the overview of the whole
problem, motivates, manages the problem) but performance analysts
frequently work for the drill sergeants who mostly care how are they
dressed (you guessed it, I hate neckties) and did they show up early
enough.

Now, after  having indulged into lengthy preamble, let's ask the
questions:

1) This book is meant for performance analysts. Do you plan on writing
one for management, as well? If performance analysts are held back by
the damagement,they cannot perform any of the good work you described in
your book. You have been both a DBA and a VP, so you have the
credibility in both roles.

2) Do you foresee a change for the role of a performance analyst in an
organization to be more of a technical manager and less of a computer
geek?

3) What will happen to the "traditional DBA"? Are we an endangered
species? Should I be wary of the poachers?






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