[thelist] Must a webmaster know databases???

Peter Small peter at genps.demon.co.uk
Wed Dec 13 12:59:21 CST 2000


I'm surprised that so many are coming out in favor of learning multiple
applications and languages. It's my understanding that the trend is for
businesses to go  away from this kind of approach to e-business solutions.

My information is that custom designed solutions are a real handicap as
they require large capital expenditures, take a relativly long time to get
operational, are prone to bugs and incompatibilities, result in high burn
rates and paradoxically are less flexible. The trend that now seems to be
gathering momentum is to avoid all the experimental and pioneering design
work and go for the new breed of ASPs (application service providers)

The old concept of the ASP model is  dying out now because the applications
are too complicated to learn; too expensive to train people to use; become
outdated and the provider may go out of business (and most of them seem to
do so). The new incarnation is realising that it is not actually the
applications people want but the function that the applications can
provide. This is giving rise to this new breed of ASPs where the client
doesn't even have to see or know about the actual application: they simply
get the service that it provides. The new ASPs then act like virtual
employees who have a specialist know how and their own hardware and
software.

The economics that support this model is that it is a one to many
situation. One specialist ASP can be a virtual employee to several
companies at the same time (subject of course to the ASP not working for
competitors).

The situation provides an important advantage: companies can go in a new
direction instantly and without any large capital outlay. Speed to market
and fast reaction to change are mission critical issues in the fast
evolving environment of the Internet. They are also essential for green
field companies (apparently the new buzz word for startups). This is why
the new breed of ASPs are such a hot topic at the moment.

If this attitude becomes prevelant, it would seem that the IT industry
might revert to a pre industrial age infra structure, where you have large
numbers of specialist craft masters (with apprentices) who provide a
variety of specialist functions as services. This would not seem to be the
best environment for the non specialist.

This is a view I'm taking on a book I'm working on so I'd appreciate any
comments that would counter this arguement.

peter
http://wwww.petersmall.net




>Hi all...
>
>How important is it for a webmaster to know database design and programming?
>My boss - at a traditional 50+ year-old company - is under the impression
>that
>because I am the webmaster, that by the same token, I should be able to know
>Access programming
>and/or ColdFusion programming, rather than asking a database guru in our
>I.S. department
>to handle it, or to go to an outside consultant.
>
>I responded and told him that I cannot know everything, and that with the
>complexity
>of the web, it is normal for people to have specialties. Why should I spend
>hours looking
>up something if it takes an expert 5 seconds? Is that not the ultimate goal?
>
>For instance...in November 1999, I took an Advanced ColdFusion Development
>course
>at Allaire, and since that time, I have used CF only for form creation and
>processing.
>But new forms are merely duplicates of other forms with other enhancements
>in
>JavaScript, HTML, etc. Not really new CF programming. Yet, my boss assumes
>I should know advanced functions even though as I told him, if I don't use
>it,
>I will forget it.
>
>Aside from myself as webmaster, I have two coworkers who are
>web developers/designers. Take something like map creation;
>I wanted to use something like MapQuest, but my boss would prefer we do it
>by hand
>and thereby spend time doing something that could have been already done.
>
>Who's right here? What goes on where you work?
>
>Thx,
>Ari
>
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