A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Over the years, in various positions, I’ve participated in many projects as a developer, lead developer, architect, jack-of-all-trades administrator, etc. I’ve also had the opportunity to lead technical projects as well.
This post focuses on techniques I have employed to successfully manage technical projects. Read on for tips regarding meetings, communication, and building your confidence.
Read on for Jeff’s tips and recommendations.
Comments closedEitan Blumin takes us to a seminar:
The SPIN sales strategy is a selling technique that was developed by Neil Rackham in the 1980s. SPIN is an acronym that stands for Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff. This strategy is based on the idea that asking the right questions can help you understand your customer’s needs and provide the best solution for them.
When I first heard about the SPIN sales strategy, I was attending a lecture that was delivered to us by a sales and marketing specialist during one of our company meetings several years ago. As a DBA, I initially assumed this strategy wouldn’t be relevant to my job. But as I listened to the presenter explain the SPIN model, I began to see its potential for use in my daily work:
It’s an interesting approach and I like the way Eitan ties it back to database administration. Of course, we could tie it to application development or any of a number of other fields. I, meanwhile, use the Colombo method, in which I ask a series of seemingly-dumb questions, but just before I leave, I say “Oh, just one more question,” and hit the person with the question proving I know that person committed the crime and have enough evidence to make an arrest.
Comments closedRyan Booz shares a few bits of advice about people learning about Postgres:
I was much further in my SQL Server career than I should have been before I understood the usefulness of
APPLYin T-SQL. I didn’t realize thatAPPLYisn’t a SQL standard and so when I started using PostgreSQL and needed similar functionality, I was perplexed trying to find the equivalent. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one searching.
My recollection here is that Microsoft introduced the APPLY operator before there was an ANSI standard, so as long as my memory isn’t faulty here, this wasn’t a case of a vendor just deciding to name something differently for the sake of it.
Regardless, Ryan has a lot of good advice for learners of PL/SQL.
Comments closed“fold” is a common operation in programming languages including Scala where we essentially use it to “reduce” (note that “reduce” is also an operation in programming languages and has a special meaning in Scala as well). In this blog, we will learn how to use the fold function, understand different types of fold operations (including foldLeft and foldRight), and try to understand how it all works. Although fold operation can be applied on Option, Future, Try, etc.. but here we will understand it through List
Fold is extremely useful for things like “I want to calculate a sum but it’s got to be a conditional sum” or when you have more complex mathematical operations to combine elements together. It can take a while to get comfortable with the syntax, but once you do, it opens mental doors.
Comments closedAbout 6 months ago we decided to look at what SQL Server engine error messages are most commonly generating support cases to Microsoft. The end goal was to update the documentation for those error messages to allow our customers to find answers for themselves before they have to call Microsoft for technical assistance.
The task, as we suspected from previous experience, was not easy because we had to mine cases for error numbers and a relatively small number of support cases get reported with error messages when they are opened. Please report full error messages when you open support cases with Microsoft – it would help us get you answers faster. Still, we were able to find the trends even from the small percentages because were looking for the top 20 or so most common errors, based on case count, and we needed relative information – which error is reported more than another.
Click through for the list. A benefit from going through this exercise is that Microsoft has provided more information on each of those error IDs, hopefully making it easier for people to diagnose and resolve problems without needing to reach out to support.
Comments closedLouis Davidson takes us through the process of asking a good question:
Over the past 25 years, I have answered a lot of programming questions in online forums, from co-workers, and from friends. It has been a while since I had been around forums, but I recently decided it was time to get back to what started me in the SQL community: answering questions. Not only is it complementary to my current job as Simple-Talk editor, it is really a great joy to be able to help other people with their problems. It is also educational to see the kinds of things other people are going through before you also go through them.
Sometimes you know the answer right away, but sometimes the question is a challenge (these are actually my favorite.) At times I have spent hours on a question, trying to figure out a solution that works, and then writing up the answer to post back. Along the way I am learning something new and (assuming I figured out a correct answer,) the question poster usually learns something too. I mean, I have been wrong a few times, at least.
It’s been a decade since I’ve haunted Q&A forums but yeah, answering questions is a good way to learn more. Still, it can be really frustrating for everybody when you get (or ask) a vague question: there’s a lot of opportunity for confusion, non-viable answers, or even people ignoring the question completely because they can’t make sense of it.
Comments closedNeil Saunders thinks about learning:
Some years ago I read an article – I forget where – describing how our general knowledge often becomes frozen in time. Asked to name the tallest building in the world you confidently proclaim “the Sears Tower!”, because for most of your childhood that was the case – never mind that the record was surpassed long ago and it isn’t even called the Sears Tower anymore. From memory the example in the article was of a middle-aged speaker who constantly referred to a figure of 4 billion for the human population – again, because that’s what he learned in school and had never mentally updated.
Is this the case with programming too? Oh yes – as I learned today when performing the simplest of tasks: reading CSV files using R.
The specific task involved ways to read a list of CSV files in R, though the impetus behind the post is ways to keep that knowledge up to date. This is one reason why it can be useful to attend introductory-level sessions on topics you already know: there might be new things in recent versions of software which change the game. There are also times when you learn something en passant: in a talk (or blog post or video) about topic X, the author might casually use some technique or tool not related to the topic itself.
Comments closedAndy Leonard has an offer for free training:
My LinkedIn and social media feeds are filled with contacts and friends sharing their availability for a new career opportunity. While some are more gracious than concerned and others more concerned than gracious, it’s normal to be both concerned and gracious. Well, it was normal for me when it happened to me. If you haven’t been laid off before, I hope you never learn what that feels like.
If you have been laid off already, or if you’ve been notified you are about to be laid off, I encourage you to see this as the beginning on your Next Opportunity.
Click through for the details on this generous offer.
Comments closedKendra Little shares a few lessons:
When I think about service objectives, I tend to assume we’re talking about guaranteed uptime, often expressed in some number of 9’s.
But Azure SQL Database has its own language. The best resource I know of to learn that language is the Azure SQL glossary of terms.
Read on for three lessons, two of which are pretty straightforward but the third one is liable to strike without you realizing.
Comments closedMarc Lelijveld thinks about migrations:
Over the last half year, I have been involved in many large migration projects from another BI tool to Power BI. All with a different setup, from Tableau, Microstrategy and from Analysis Services to Power BI. In this blog I will shine a light on the experiences I gained during these migrations and share some do’s and don’ts. In this blog I start with the why you even migrate in the first place, after which we dive into the where to start and of course also how. A blog that is more focused on the process rather than the technical how-to. At the same time, this blog describes the work I did over the past months and therefore is a small recap of the past half year.
Read on to understand your “why,” at least when it comes to migrations.
Comments closed