Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Taking Stock of Your Career

    We’re almost a quarter into the new year. Think about these statements: “Imagine you lose your job tomorrow.  What would you like your next job to look like?  Start acquiring the skills for your desired next job today!”

    That’s a quote from Jan 2, when I saw someone talking about their struggles. It was a statement that resonated with me, and it’s one that I think everyone should be thinking about on a regular basis. Not worried or concerned about losing your job, though maybe that’s not so far fetched right now, but more, are you moving your career forward in some way that’s a) valuable to your company, and b) valuable to someone else.

    Both of those are important. Certainly you want to deliver value to your current employer. That’s why they pay you and keep you around. Being skilled in your position is good, and improving that skill matters. This could keep you employed, and perhaps until you retire. That’s my plan, and I continue to work on skills that will help me make this job the last full-time job I’ll have have.

    I feel confident in this plan, and I think I do a good job for Redgate. Some of the skills I work regularly on might help me with work elsewhere, but many are likely specific to this role. I don’t know that I could find this same type of job again at another company, but if I did need or decide to change jobs, I’d need other skills.

    That is one of those things that keeps me learning and moving forward. I dig into various technologies, trying to better understand how they work, and thinking about where I might use them. I might not need them in my current role, and they may not be useful at Redgate, but they do ensure that I am building some skills that someone else might find valuable.

    I see lots of people that feel stuck in their jobs, and without support to grow and learn from their company. They struggle to find time and energy to learn about the cloud or AI or containers or anything else. I get that. Life is busy and hard, and (hopefully) you have plenty outside of work to occupy yourself.

    Take a minute and read that quote above. Now imagine you need a new job. Do you want to try and update your resume tomorrow and hope you have some current, modern skills that lots of companies need? Or do you want to hope someone values your experience already? Those aren’t bad plans, but maybe having a few new tricks you can talk about, things you’ve started to learn about, is a plan worth considering.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 27 Mar 2020

    I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

    Today’s newsletter said: Contact a neighbor, friend, or family and offer to help.

    My wife and I live in a neighborhood of large ranches. There are about 18 of us, and a few years ago we all got together to address a few issues. We don’t have an HOA, but we worked together to take care of some legal things for our area.

    We sent out a note to others offering to help if they were struggling in any way with this pandemic. So far, no takers, but we’ve put this out there.

    I’ve also contacted some family to check on them. Not much we can do to help, but we are available if someone needs some supplies, shopping service, etc. for those nearby.

    Honestly, I feel like this didn’t help me cope a lot, because nothing came out of it. I know that likely means people are doing OK, or feel they are, but the inaction and inability to do anything is tough.

  • Moving to a New SqlClient

    DotNet developers, if you’re using the System.Data.SqlClient, stop. Move over to Microsoft.Data.SqlClient now.

    It’s easy to do, well, it’s relatively easy to say that. The actual work isn’t that hard, but it can be a challenge to move assemblies. In any case,  you need to reference the new assembly in your code, and ensure you’ve downloaded the NuGet package.

    Vicky Harp wrote a piece introducing this new provider, and you can find plenty of posts around the Internet (and videos) that explain how to change and why.

    Essentially, when you have the new assembly, you change this line:

    Using System.Data.SqlClient;

    to this:

    Microsoft.Data.SqlClient;

    If you haven’t fully qualified the assembly at the top and did it in code, you can search and replace.

    The big reason for the change is to allow the ADO.NET provider to release quicker and keep up with changes in technology. When the SqlClient has shipped with dotNet or dotNet Core, it upgraded rather rarely, and the pace of change was disconnected from features being added to SQL Server. Now Vicky’s team has responsibility here and is upgrading this at a more rapid pace.

    Let your friends know, and if you see System.Data.SqlClient in a code review, consider trying to refactor that out.

  • A Data Controversy

    Quite a bit has changed since this article about airlines and the US government.  Since very few people are flying, or even can fly, perhaps this disagreement is moot, but I bet it comes up again. Now, separate from the idea of the actual disagreement here, there is an interesting discussion about the data involved here. In short, the US government wants airlines to collect data about passengers to help track the COVID-19 virus. Airline executives say they can’t easily get this data, other than on paper, without spending a few months on development.

    Certainly having a way to gather additional information in a digital form can require some development work. There are all sorts of software decisions to be made about when, where, and how users might input information. We have mobile devices, kiosks, laptops, and more, all of which might require separate interfaces for software changes. There is also the testing, validation, and verification we want to ensure the software works well and doesn’t introduce instability.

    In today’s world, with growing legislation, there is also a question of privacy. These requests may or may not conflict with other laws that airlines are bound by. There is likely to be more conflict here as the world changes and laws are slow to change and converge in some type of consistency. Rapidly changing requirements, as have been pushed during the COVID-19 pandemic, can potentially put us technical people in a difficult position. We have to balance the urgency of meeting requirements with the potential liability of violating privacy. I’d hope we could find some balance there, especially in a crisis.

    We do need to be flexible and ready to adapt to changing requirements. If regulations change, our organizations ought to be able to prioritize these changes and rapidly deploy them. In today’s world, where many high performing DevOps companies can get new software out in hours or days, governments may expect large companies to be prepared to follow suit. In that case, especially where new data is needed, having a software development process that includes the database is critical.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.