Re: Is programming sexier than data design?

[cbullard@hiwaay.net]

If you can separate those practically at the job you are likely  
working in a canned document production gig where all the programming  
has been done for you and not calling you a programmer is a means to  
keep your salary in the 40k to 60k range USD.  IOW, cheap hands to  
tag, not design.

Data design without an eye to implementation in code is clothing  
design without an eye to the human body.  No size fits all.

I've spent the last ten months "designing" a FOSI to render S1000D to  
PDF via a broken version of Arbor Text.   I've spent sixty hours a  
week for the last ten weeks writing an application to get around the  
problems of compose on demand  from the CSDB for a data design that  
while smart in its data-ness presents peculiar challenges to  
composition if one doesn't actually understand the data design both in  
its XML features and the problems of mapping it to an output  spec  
that is significantly different from the implied spec.  None of these  
are insurmountable and it's been fun to solve the problems but without  
programming skills, they are impossible to solve.  Of course others  
have and that is why there are expensive but working solutions to  
these problems available commercially.  That's the business.   Diverse  
competencies are the best approach to just-in-time chaos:  smarter  
monkeys over process.

Sexier?  No.  Excel spreadsheets are sexier if you measure who's  
actually getting laid by virtue of their work title.  XML-Dev slowed  
down once it was realized that as a Development Process it was  
complete.   Rehash isn't sexy.

XSLT implementation is harder by orders of magnitude than data design.  
 That makes for a lively and constantly refreshed monkey tree.

len