If they don't know how to look at a query plan and craft a solution can you really call them full stack?

The stack has to bottom our somewhere and it's usually at the application code

If that’s where they bottom out they should be called “mid stack” rather than full stack.

If you are claiming to be full stack you better be prepared to go all the way.

I would describe myself full stack under that definition. Most "full stack" people I know that sit in my Uni courses have mostly learned Java EE + Oracle DB or Javascript + /dev/null^w^w MongoDB. Most of them would probably not be able to construct a relational database or libc from scratch.

Granted, such knowledge isn't immediately useful since it's something I or anyone is likely to do but it grants insight into systems. I know roughly how a query optimizer does and what it can, and more importantly, can't do.

When you know a system you can optimize for it. When you don't know a system you can only follow someone else's advice on how to optimize for it.

> /dev/null^w^w MongoDB

Nitpick: That's actually either three ^w or just one ^w, depending on how your WORDCHARS is set up. :)

I'm sadly not that much of a Vim expert, Hackernews lacks formatting for a strikethrough and I wasn't sure how a ~~/dev/null~~ would be interpreted.

How much quantum mechanics do you really need to know to code the next Uber for hamsters?

Isn't the current quest in quantum mechanics (to find a grand unified theory) to find an abstraction that does leak? At the moment it's too self contained and doesn't explain anything about the macroscopic world.

In any case, having a basic understanding of the next level up (the electron) has proved quite useful to my career, otherwise I wouldn't know how turning things off then on again affects the machines I'm working with.

Them, or the manager that hired them? If no one up the chain brings on a DBA what are they supposed to do? I hear ya. But this is as much a symptom of naive (and budget stretched) leadership as it is of the hands on deck.

Your solution costs 150K$/year while theirs took a weekend and saves 50K$/year...

Allow me to clarify.

1) It took a weekend to complete. The friction was building for far longer. There's a cost to that, esp if it effects customer satisfaction and retention. They didn't refactor for fun, did they :) How many dev teams aren't so lucky? Is this article a no choice outlier, or a best practice?

2) My comment wasn't directed at the article but on another comment that blamed the developers. These problems should be owned by ownership / leadership / management more and engineers less.

3) That said, hire a DBA? I don't think that's necessary.

I call myself full stack and I can tune a database. decent database design comes first though.