Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Information on the Go

    I have been very interested in smart watches over the last couple years. I like wearing a watch that allows me to glance at it for the current time. While I can pull out my phone, and I’ve done that for little over a year, I preferred a watch. There are plenty of times that my phone isn’t easily pulled out.

    After considering lots of watches out there, I eventually settled on a Pebble, which I wrote about after living with it for a few weeks.

    Since that time, I’ve continued to use the watch and have enjoyed getting data on the go. Today I was traveling and getting a flight notification (priority email) through the watch as I was traveling through the airport was nice. I didn’t have to pull out the phone, and in fact, because it was in a low pocket, I didn’t feel it vibrate. Not that I would have had issues today, but there are times it would have been handy.

    One the plane, I saw someone with an Apple Watch. In fact, I’ve been seeing them more and more. My wife had asked me if I wanted one for my birthday this year. I like Apple products, and it was tempting. However the more I’ve looked at the product and read about it, the more I agree with Troy Hunt. It’s beautiful and awesome. And pointless.

    I want simple, quick information on the go. For me, that boils down to a few things I’m looking to learn without finding my phone while I’m walking, running, driving, or even talking with friends:

    • time
    • text messages – This is so I can decide if I want to, or need to, respond.
    • high priority emails – In the iPhone, these are my “VIP” people.
    • music – current song, play/pause, skip/restart
    • pace and exercise time

    The last item is really nice. If I start a workout on the Map My Run app, it starts the display on my wrist

    Photo Jul 17, 2 29 11 PM

    There’s not much more I want to appear on my wrist. Having this track my steps  would be nice, but I haven’t seen a way to track this in the background, which is what I would need to get rid of my flex.

    Responding to texts might be nice, but I can’t see how that would work smoothly, nor do I want to use speech. I don’t want to answer the phone on it, ala Dick Tracy, nor am I looking to play games.

    Really, I’m looking for a little bit of data. The Pebble seems to be the best choice for me, with a long battery life, flexibility to control notifications from the phone, and get a bit of information in an easy to consume fashion.

    Your needs might be different, and I’m sure some people would prefer a better device that does more, perhaps with GPS or other functions, but for now I haven’t seen a better device for me.

  • Continuous Delivery In Real Life

    I’ve been writing and presenting on Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) for a few years now. In that time I’ve encountered a lot of excitement and a good deal of skepticism as well. Many people want to know more and more, who is actually using this stuff? It’s nice to talk about Spotify and Netflix, but their problem domain, resources, and above all, youth, are something few organizations deal with.

    What about Microsoft? They’re a large organization, fairly mature (now 40 years old), and have their own levels of bureaucracy to manage. However they’re fundamentally changed the way they perform development across the last decade and a half. Starting in the beginning of this century, they moved to make secure coding a priority. In the last few years, they’ve also started to truly speed up their development process with CI and CD, culminating (now) with an extremely quick Windows 10 development pipeline.

    I saw a piece noting Microsoft is releasing almost daily builds of the new OS. That’s an amazing feat of engineering, and certainly one that shows you can develop an efficient software pipeline. While I’m sure that individual engineers don’t necessarily have their code released daily, that’s not the point. The point is that changes can be checked into version control (please, please do this), tested, and then made available for release.

    You can build software this quickly, too, though not in a day. Probably not in a month. I would guess it will take a year or two for many organizations to assemble the processes, change a bit of culture, and get used to building your application daily. Above all, it will take time for you to build unit tests and get them automated. You’ll have issues along the way, and it will be painful, but isn’t releasing software painful for most groups right now?

    A year or two sounds like a long time, but really it isn’t. Look back a year at your company and job? How much have your process changed? If it isn’t a lot, doesn’t that feel like you could have done something to improve the way you release software? Is there the possibility of making a smoother process that makes it easier to get enhancements to customers? I’m sure there is, and I hope you think about starting to assemble your own software pipeline today with CI and CD. Take baby steps, and slowly make changes to automate and standardize your deployment process.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

  • Jump In

    The SQL Server community is amazing. We help, share, bond, and care for each other in a way that is very rare for a large, disparate set of technical professionals. I see and hear validation of this constantly from people that participate in their first SQL Saturday and are amazed by the experience.

    I think one of the amazing things about the #SQLFamily is that we do jump in and help each other. I rarely see the RTFM answers to questions, or ganging up by multiple people to pick on someone’s ignorance. In fact, I see the opposite. Most often the SQL community calls out and refuses to tolerate unprofessional behavior.

    This seems to be the prevailing view of so many in the community, and I’m not surprised to see John Morehouse call for even more people to jump in and help out. I certainly see plenty of people offering to support or mentor others that are new to writing or speaking, and I think we can do even more.

    All of you can share your knowledge. Whether through speaking, writing, even just providing more comments and thoughts on what others do. Many of you have lots of experience and thoughts that can help your colleagues get better at their jobs. Whether inside of your company, at events, user groups, or just with a note posted to a random SQL Server blog on the internet. Jump in, be polite and professional, and make someone else a better SQL Server professional.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.1MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

     

  • Looking Back at a Sabbatical – One Year Later

    Last year at this time I was nearing the end of my sabbatical. I’ve been using the Timehop app on my phone to look back at the past and I’ve noticed the tweets and pictures that I had from last year popping up. I decided it was a good time to look back at a year in the past.

    Here was one of my projects, and the one I was most proud of: a flagpole made of wood.

    If you’re interested, you can read the journey I went on.

    Looking Back

    It’s been a year since I had six weeks off to do whatever. I think I had some memorable experiences from the time off, but I wanted to first look at how I feel this year, with no long set of time away from work scheduled.

    First, I don’t miss the sabbatical. I didn’t develop this craving to not work any longer, or work less. I didn’t think I needed to change my life around. In hindsight, it felt like a summer vacation between semesters in college. A fun time, and a break between the more serious work of building a career.

    That’s how I see it now. I’d like to do it again, and I’m not sure I’ll wait five years to do it again. I’ll have to see how our family finances go, and probably wouldn’t self-finance 6 weeks, but I am thinking to take a week or two again, separate from vacation, and just get away from work. However, like my sabbatical, I’ll want a plan of something I do that’s different than sitting around or vacationing. I’ll be looking for some self-improvement.

    Growth

    What did last year teach me, or how did I grow? Those are good questions. I’m a little torn on how to answer them. Let me tackle the teaching first, since that’s easier.

    I learned quite a few things about building, Habitat for Humanity, and woodworking by tackling projects. Those were easy skills, and things I picked up. I have more work to go and more to learn, but I’ve documented some of that stuff. The other thing I learned is that I can still learn and grow and make an effort to improve my life in numerous ways.

    I also learned some confidence. By stepping back, tackling some physical projects that might have intimidated me a bit prior to last summer, I know I can do more. This has helped me in having a bit more confidence to tackle other projects, both in an outside of, work in the last year.

    In terms of growth, I had the chance to reflect and appreciate what a great life I have, and what a great company I work for. Both of those definitely helped to recharge me and have made it a bit easier to manage life and travel in the last year. I’m a bit more mature in how I watch my schedule.

    Perhaps the biggest thing I learned is that time truly is my most precious asset. It is hard to set aside time for large projects, and I have a few half finished ones because I can’t get to them with a busy family life. In some sense I’m willing to let them go for now because I’m busy, but it made me appreciate the time I had last year to just methodically plod along. Even on weekends it’s hard to find that now.

    The Future

    Andy Warren has always said that we don’t get enough thinking time at work. Many of us are so busy moving from project to project, from work item to work item, that we fail to stop and consider the bigger picture. I doubted how much value there was in that, but the sabbatical helped me re-consider my thoughts.

    I have a clearer picture of the value of being able to step aside for a day or so and just think about things. I still find it hard to find the time, but when I can spare an hour or two and think about SQLServerCentral, or how Redgate works, or how some part of the world could be better, I appreciate that more.

    Finding this time also has me considering self-financing a shorter sabbatical sometime in the next year. At some point I want to be able to take a few days to myself, thinking about life, and career, and how to improve them for me.