After years of working in the same
area we get entrenched in our ways: go to the same user groups, seek bulletin
boards strictly based on our area of expertise, etc. Even jokes become
interspersed with professional terms making them obscure to the non-initiated. Only
a data modeler might appreciate a pun such as: “An entity with a dangling
relationship walks into a bar....” There is a real danger in such entrenchment.
However, it does sometimes help to extend familiar concepts to a new area.
I wrote the above lines back in 2008,
then I realized, no one was laughing at data modeling jokes; they were busy learning
new concepts. Enterprise architecture and relational databases were “so
yesterday”, and NoSQL was the new king. The article was never published as I redirected
my energy as well. Nowadays I sign for user
groups but have to switch to yet another technology before being able to attend
their next meeting.
