Infobright Blog

Last September, Infobright started their internship program at the University of Illinois in Champaign.  This prestigious, world-renowned computer science department generates amazing talent.  With that talent, though, there's always an "a-ha" moment when the student "gets it": it's not about the technology.. it's always the use case.

In school, we're taught standard languages, approaches, theory, and algorithms.  There's not much extrapolation into the corporate world.  In fact, many in the corporate world still cling to those original lessons.  Thus, when a problem arises, we tend to "run home to mom."  For example, let's assume you're creating a new website.  Did you instinctively think of the LAMP Stack?  If not, how about Drupal or Wordpress?  Each of us has an automatic selection based upon prior experiences.

Now step back -- think about that website again.  What are you doing on this site?  Will you be doing tons of transactions?  What about analytics?  Is the data on your site highly structured, or is it a near free-for-all?  If you need a database, each of these use cases would most likely be served by using a different technology.  Our first solution may be the right answer, but it is often wrong. 

Understanding the use case must be the first step in solving any problem.  In addition, appreciating the hunt for the solution is always the second -- it's in that step we achieve the 'a-ha' moment.