It’s that time of the month again where all of us bloggers (new, senior and everyone in between) get a new topic to write about. This month Louis Davidson asks us to write about what current me would give as advice to past me when I was starting in the data platform world.
So let’s start by going back to where it started for me. In my current job I really dug in deep into everything data platform (Microsoft based as all the other are yuckie ;)). But the job I had before that is where I first got in touch with data and databases.
I was working as a sort of admin on an application that managed data inside an Oracle database cluster thing. Oracle 7 or 8 if I remember correctly. I knew what the application was doing but the database was a whole different story. As there was a lot of gate-keeping going on at the time, it was quite the struggle to move on and gain more knowledge.
In the end I bought a book on Oracle that came with a CD from which I installed a local environment to play on and learn by doing. Which turned out the way I learn best by the way. Anyway, after some time I got access to the database to create and run scripts to update records in batches, saving time and money. As there was no testing environment, I had to read, reread and rereread my code to make sure it wouldn’t interfere with the night jobs. You can guess the rest.
In any case, even in that very junior role there were issues that came my way. We need you to fix the data on column X. Without hesitation I would dig into that, spend a few hours to build a fix and prepare it to run. And after waiting for some time the result came back. 0 rows affected. Or the Oracle equivalent I’ve forgotten. Which meant the issue described wasn’t there.
The advice I’d give my younger self (and to be honest my current self at certain times as well) is to check if the issue is really a data issue or an end-user issue like stale reports, Excel files or even old CSV-files. Never ever rely on the statement made by someone but be critical and inquisitive. Should that number read 8 or is the database value of 7 correct. Or does every output say 7 and is that person wrong?
Never assume, always check
Thanks for reading!
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