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An Apology to SDN and a Request for Advice

former_member181923
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After thinking about Mark Finnern's suggestion yesterday that I stop blogging so frequently, I realized that I had made an honest mistake about the way in which I was using the SDN blog area.

Let me try to explain how and why this mistake occurred.

First, it goes without saying that what SDN does well, it does extremely well. I have used the Expert Forums on several critical occasions in the past few months, and they function "above and beyong". I also keep a list of "good_sdn_links" when I see great guides and explanations in blog posts, so I don't have to bother searching for them later, and here again, SDN is doing its job extremely well.

But the fact that SDN does certain things very very well doesn't mean it is doing everything it should be doing.

What do I mean by this?

Well, many people here at SDN would agree with me that there are many things terribly wrong with the IT community today and inside the SAP community as well. Furthermoe, it's my opinion that SDN is doing nothing to try and change these things, when it in fact can and should be trying to change them.

So I decided to do my part as a "change agent" by posting a number of "perspective" posts which tried to communicate what I thought was wrong with IT and SAP today.

But here's where the mistake came in.

First, I figured from my read count that I must be doing something right, otherwise, why would my blog posts have @52,000 reads since 10/1/2006, or about 440 reads per calendar day?

Second, for all the criticism I received in personal emails about my blogs, I also received validation at SDN. Let me give you an example of this.

Two well-respected and long-time members of the SDN community indicated to me in personal emails that they had a lot of problems with my two long series of blogs on the WDA component WDR_TEST_UI_ELEMENTS and how it could be very easily converted to do many other useful things.

But at the same time as I was receiving this criticsm , I responded to Thomas Szuecs in one of his threads and therefore took an opportunity to ask him if he knew the SAP developer of WDR_TEST_UI_ELEMETNS, and if so, to convey my gratitude to the developer of WDR_TEST_UI_ELEMENTS for writing such a wonderful piece of code. He responded that he did know this developer and that this developer liked the series very much,

Third, I have received blog responses from several SDNers indicating that my "perspective posts" were registering with them. The one of these that I treasure most is from the SDNer who posted the following: "I like the way you put your finger where it hurts - keep it up."

So, you can see from the above three points how the mistake occurred - I figured that if I had 440 reads per day over four months, and if my technical posts were OK with key SAP developers, and if at least some readers were responding with indications that they understood what I was trying to do in my "perspective" posts, then I must be doing something right.

But if you've been following some recent conversations in this Forum, you'll realize that I was doing something quite wrong.

What I was doing wrong with my "perspective" posts was trying to use the blog space at SDN to effect change in the SAP community and therefore, in the larger IT community.

And if you think about it, this was wrong for a very obvious reason: SDN has this "Suggestions" Forum that I'm posting in right now.

So if I was really serious about trying to get SDN to become a change agent to help improve the SAP community and the larger IT community, then I should have been posting a particular kind of post to the Suggestion Forum, instead of "perspective" blogs.

In particular, I should have been making Suggestion Forum posts which:

a) clearly identify a problem in the SAP community that SDN can actually help to change;

b) offering a concrete suggestion as to how SDN can help to change this problem.

So - having finally realized my mistake, I want to start posting posts to this Suggestion Forum which do (a) and (b).

But before I do, I want to ask two questions up front: one about frequency and one about content.

With respect to frequency, how often should I make one of these posts to the Suggestion Forum - weekly, every other day - you folks tell me.

With respect to content, are there any topics that any one thinks inappropriate for a suggestion post? In particular, would anyone object to Suggestion Forum posts on the following topics:

a) in the SAP community (outside BI/A), matters relating to real business computation are being ignored in favor of an emphasis on tool technologies that have nothing to do with real business computation, but are important to SAP's marketing strategies; what can SDN to change this?

b) in the SAP community, not enough support is being provided to the many external SAP developers who are stuck on systems at or above 4.6c and below 04s; what can SDN do to change this?

c) in the SAP community, there is not enough awareness of deficiencies in the relational database model, and how carefully it must be used; what can SDN do to change this?

d) in the SAP community, there is not enough awareness of how various "organizational pathologies" at customer sites constrain the ways in which SAP can be used to benefit customers; what can SDN do to change this?

e) in the SAP community, there is far too little focus on SAP metadata, particularly at a time when SAP is trying to move into the Enterprise SOA paradigm.

To sum up:

1) If you think Suggestion Posts in any of these five areas are inappropriate, please take a moment to let me know.

2) If you think that Suggestion Posts should also be limited to a certain frequency, please also take a moment to let me know.

3) If you've gotten this far in reading this post, thanks very much for your patience and for whatever advice you have the time and energy to provide.

djh

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (3)

Answers (3)

former_member181923
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Hi Puru - <br><br>

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Anything that augments or supplements the so-called "relational paradigm" is good news, because this paradigm is really nothing more than codification of "best practices" as they existed once b-tree and inverted file indices had been invented (plus, of course, the introduction of some really "bad practices" whose justification lies solely in the fact that they give the relational paradigm a patina of spurious mathematical formalization).<br><br>

I will do "due dilegence" and search SDN for blogs or Forum posts on "liveCache" and if I don't find anything, I will return here and beg you to post something on it, assuming you have the time.<br><br>

Regards<br><br>

djh

eddy_declercq
Active Contributor
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Hi,

Before posting further, I would suggest that you take first a break for a week or two (or longer if you want) in order to reflect on things and let the rational take over the emotional.

I'm doing the same myself (see my latest Grumpy) in order to think how to contribute further (if any) in order that both the SDN community and myself can benefit from it an get technical, intellectual, etc satisfaction from it.

Again, it's a suggestion and not a request/attack/whatever in anyway.

Eddy

-


Pimp up the S(D)N site and earn points. Check this <a href="/people/eddy.declercq/blog/2007/02/01/pimp-up-the-jam log</a> for details

former_member181923
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Hi Eddy -

Thanks very much for the advice; it will probably work out that way anyway because right now I'm really interested in doing a good enough initial "trial-run" that Valery/Rich will be willing to get involved in a mini-collaboration that I'm right now working to start up with an opening post in "Test/Playground".

Anyway, since you're taking some time off, I beg you to take a look at the first two paragraphs of this link:

<a href="http://www.kcoyle.net/granfalloons.html">ReCatsCradle</a>.

and also then read Kurt Vonnegut's short novel "Cat's Cradle" if you haven't already.

It is amazing how Vonnegut's notions of a "granfaloon" and a "karass" are related to various events that transpire here at SDN.

Take care of yourself, buddy.

Best regards

djh

former_member181923
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sorry - here's that link again

<a href="http://www.kcoyle.net/granfalloons.html">ReCatsCradle </a>

Former Member
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Word of warning - Test/Playground forum is often cleared out it's simply a place for users to test how to use the forums nothing more.

Former Member
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hi,

if you asked me, I'd drop c).

Maybe I'd follow the discussion but only elsewhere - an academic forum or an esoteric one.

regards,

anton

former_member181923
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Hi Anton -

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

With respect to (c), what I was thinking of is things SAP could do to make its own database layer do more than it does now.

One possible example:

C-store technology looks like it's gonna beat the pants off standard relational retrievals on tables with long rows (lots of columns.) So what can SDN do to convince SAP to investigate this technology?

You may be right that this is too abstract - I don't know ...

Regards

djh

Former Member
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SAP is coming up with liveCache which is OO Databse+Relational Database..