Re: Any comments? (Answers to Pete)

Thanks Pete! I'm pretty stressed out so that advice helps me out a
lot. I don't have much experience outside of the mainframe because I'm
used to working 60 -70 hours a week for no extra pay so any free time
or money for education isn't there. The company doesn't actually train
us - they like to give us a website address where we are supposed to
use our "free time" to take an online tutorial. I'm not sure that
qualifies me to do this type of major conversion in such a limited
amount of time. The free time I get is usually the 30 minutes I can
microwave a cup a soup and slurp it at my desk before somebody comes in
and asks a question so I may not be getting the full enrichment of a
cheesy online tutorial.

If you don't mind I will take you up on your offer to do the help the
needy and email you sometime.

For our implementation phase we just have to get our database over to a
windows server offsite and be able to load and extract data from
various sources. I am also figuring out Networking, VPN, Citrix and
all that too so that is an added thing on my list due by the end of the
month. We have Oracle help from my buddy who is doing this
unofficially to help us out but with 4 developers this is a bit much.

It does help to know about the web development but right now we are not
doing that portion of it - it is now done by another "data partner".
But we will have to know that because our mgmt doesn't want to depend
upon them to do our website and web side apps in the future, which
makes sense, if they purchase the tools and training and maybe hire a
couple other people.

We are glorified data processors, dbas and networking admins right now
which is pretty much outside my experience level. We also have to do
contract negotiation, marketing, user testing, define business
requirements, and manage projects. If I could only concentrate on
developing code it would be so great, but now I am still waiting on
them to purchase licenses and equipment. That for our company could
take forever. And I have to follow up with purchasing, management,
network support, dba's, offsite vendors and state government to get
stuff done or it tends to fall by the way side. Just getting people to
do what they are supposed to do takes oodles of patience and constant
attention. We could do some of it ourselves, but we aren't allowed the
permission. So on it goes...

I'm bugging out a bit because getting decisions made or some sort of
system plan is very difficult in the current bureaucratic nightmare so
it always requires an eform, approval from ten different areas and
coordination with peeps at other departments and outside the company.
It's a crash course in system design but even though I'm bellyachin'
about it - it is fun.
I just worry it won't be right, so I don't want our heads chopped off
because they stretched us in too many areas at once.

It really does help to have your advice. Thank you very much! I wish
we had more time to be able to learn some of these skills. Since we
have such limited time, I don't want it to be slapdash but I also can't
take months to learn new technologies because they haven't given us the
time. It will probably be - as it usually is - what is cheapest and
easiest to do. Now if I can get the software licenses, the system set
up and the data partners connected, that will be another challenge.

.

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