You can register now, but on Dec 3, I have a webinar with Microsoft on database devops and Azure. This is a joint effort with Redgate, so I’ll be showing some of our tools.
In the webinar, which I recorded last week, I walk through the idea of Database DevOps in general, showing how we evolve our database development to incorporate automation, use Azure DevOps, and deploy code to an Azure database.
Register today, and I’ll be ready for questions on Dec 3.
I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.
Today’s tip is to look at life through someone else’s eyes and see their perspective.
In today’s world, in many places, I find that people lack the ability to look at the world through other’s eyes. We’ve lost some empathy and willingness to examine things from another perspective. This is especially true during the pandemic, where politics and frustrations seem to be overwhelming.
I have my own views, but I had the chance to hang out with a friend recently. This person sees the world differently than I, but I decided to understand, not argue or complain. In this case, the person talked a bit about why they agreed or disagreed with particular decisions or actions by the state or individuals. I asked questions for clarification or more detail, but allowed this person to educate me on their point of view.
It was a good conversation, in a way that’s often lost in the media or in larger groups. I didn’t agree with everything, and did feel there were some emotions overriding logic, but I could understand and appreciate the perspective, even if I disagreed with portions.
I like these conversations and I wish we could have more of them in small groups, in a civilized fashion.
The IETF has a document, RFC 7282, also called ” On Consensus and Humming in the IETF”, in which they describe how the body makes decisions. This is their philosophy:
We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code.
That is a process that I can get behind. Overall, I don’t like authoritative leaders. I don’t like to be one, though I do recognize as a manager there are times I need to make some decision. Overall, however, I like consensus.
Someone was discussing how to choose approaches when developing software and brought my attention to that quote. With us being remote now, and unable to hum, this person talked about how to solve problems without humming.
This individual talked about identifying solutions in a team, but not taking a vote, or rather, no immediate vote. Instead, they devised a rating system allowing everyone to look at all solutions and rate them from 5 (best solution ever) to 1 (this would be a terrible mistake). They then produce a histogram of the results for each solution.
Once they’ve done this, they can then have people raise issues and debate them. I assume time limited, which is important, but often when we see different levels of support, we may rethink our rating or the merits/detractions of an approach. At some point, they re-rate the solutions and try to develop consensus.
We won’t always agree completely with an approach, but I do think that we can often come to some decision we can support, especially with some rational arguments and reasoning. I’d like to think that I rarely had to overrule an entire group. Building a team means finding ways to discuss, debate, and decide together.
Steve Jones
For some reason, I can never remember how to do markdown links. I know to use the hash symbol (#) for headings. I know that asterisks do bold, or italics, though I can’t remember one or two without checking. This seems to work for me. Though when I check the markdownguide.org, I see I’ve forgotten underscores can be used.
I know numbers and dashes for lists, that’s intuitive. I get that and use it all the time.
But I can’t remember how to do links. I know parenthesis and brackets are involved, but I constantly seem to get it wrong.
At least for me, writing actually helps my memory. so, I’m writing this on a piece of paper.
[text](link)
As a matter of fact, I’ll write it a couple times, and type it here.
[text](link)
[voice of the dba](http://www.voiceofthedba.com)
while I’m at it.
Maybe now I’ll remember this.
