Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • BYOD

    Would you want to provide your own device, like this one?

    As laptop prices have plummeted over the last few years to the point where most technical people can afford to purchase their own machine for around $500. Unless you want an Apple machine, then you’ll be looking at something over $1000. There are quite a few people working with SQL Server on OSX, however, so if you want one for work, you can make the switch, and here are a few blogs for you (Aaron Bertrand, Brent Ozar, Joe Webb)

    As computers become a commodity, and we use them more and more to live our lives as well as work, does it make sense for workers to purchase their own machines and use them in a corporate setting? I know some companies give workers a computer allowance and the workers can take the machine with them if they quit, presumably if they work at the company for longer than a few months. Other companies give their employees money for technology, which can be exciting for technical people that might want to upgrade their monitors or other accessories regularly.

    There are definite security and data concerns, but with cheap memory, disks, and hypervisors, it’s possible to get around those issues, and allow employees to work with the tools they are familiar with. I ran across this blog that talks about workers owning their own devices in the future, even being required to provide them. Just like many other professions where the workers must own their own set of tools.

    On one hand this seems crazy. Employers should provide computers, and as a young worker in this business, I would have struggled to purchase a $1500-2000 laptop. Or maybe I wouldn’t have. Maybe I would have seen it as an investment in my career, just like college was. These days, we have even more devices, and while IT departments struggle to secure them, that doesn’t stop people from using them, or wanting them. I think I’d like to provide my own smartphone and laptop, and get some sort of allowance from my employer each year to offset the cost.

    I don’t know how we’d handle the data/security pieces of this scenario, but I’m there would be no shortage of ideas from the various software vendors.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • The Virtual Lab

    Over a decade ago, when the startup company that I worked for went bankrupt, I received a few servers and some other hardware as a partial severance. At the time it seemed like a good idea, and it was nice to have a few spare servers on hand. I would later use some of that hardware to work on SQLServerCentral. My wife, however, wasn’t thrilled since spare hardware, even powerful hardware, doesn’t buy groceries.

    These days the pace of technology change is high. SQL Server is a stable platform that many companies might install and use for a decade, but it seems we have new features to learn every 18-24 months as new versions are released. I think more and more of us have to understand a wider variety of features and platforms all the time, even if we use them sparingly. For many of us, that means some sort of lab if we want to gain any sort of skill with the products.

    One of the best things about virtualization, in my mind, is that it enables the average professional working with technology to build a huge lab for a fraction of the cost that it would have cost a decade ago. A relatively modestly priced laptop, something in the $600-800 range, will run most any technology you need, including Windows 2008 R2 Data Center in a VM. If you wonder how you can do this on a budget, check out Denny Cherry’s article on building a lab with VMWare or the Virtual Server series on SSC. You could do the same thing with Hyper-V or Virtual Box, and a subscription to MSDN or TechNet, something many of us get from our employers. If you don’t have access to those programs, there are evaluation editions of almost all software you can use.

    With an external hard drive, you could even have a portable lab that you can take with you anywhere.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • WWBOD

    What Would Brent Ozar Do?

    I’ve titled this for Brent Ozar (web |@brento), What Would Brent Ozar Do, since he was the one that turned me on to this post about calculating your FU money. A polite way of describing FU money would be the money that allows you to live your life on your terms, without having to work again and without having to kowtow to anyone else, including your employer.

    When I was younger, I was very money driven, looking for new jobs or ways that would allow me to earn more money. I have been in and out of consulting, always looking to move up in the world. As I grew older, had a family, and (hopefully) grew wiser, I realized that most of the time I hadn’t be happier by making more money. Finding more money became a game, but the things that really helped me enjoy life were the challenges, the people, and the experiences I had in different places. It’s not my advice, and it’s not often followed, but it’s advice I think it well worth following: do something with your life that you enjoy.

    Most of us are not likely to get FU money early in our careers, but hopefully many of us will get close enough to live life on our terms when we retire. However this Friday, let’s have fun for a minute and think about what it would mean if you had the winning lottery ticket next week and received a check equal to your FU money.

    What would you do if you had the choice?

    If you didn’t have to work at your job anymore, would you go crazy like so many athletes. Would you keep your life relatively sane and embark on some other pursuit? Maybe you’re follow your musical dreams, like Allan Hirt. Maybe you’d go back to school and study something that interests you, maybe you’d move to Hawaii and surf every day. Drop a note in the discussion that lets us know how you’d change your life.

    I had this question put to me on vacation with some friends, and the first thing that popped into my mind is that I’d go work for Habitat for Humanity. I enjoy building things, working outside, and their mission is one that speaks to me. I hope that someday I’ll retire from technology and go work with them, and I feel confident it will happen. Someday.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Coding More Carefully

    TRS-80
    Compiling code on one of these was a chore.

    When I wrote computer code in school, programming as we kids called it, I could literally watch my programs compile on the screen. Working on a Radio Shack TRS-80 in PASCAL, we would see the lines of code scroll by, 3 or 4 a second, as they compiled into executable code. When that is the speed of the computer building your work, you learn very quickly to proofread your code from syntax or logic errors. A simple semicolon on the wrong place can result in quite a bit of lost time.

    At some point we transitioned to Turbo Pascal, which compiled hundreds of lines in a split second, on par with the speed of today’s compilers, which are often working through thousands of lines of code. Is that a good thing, however? Has this speed improvement ended up building poor habits in developers?

    I ran across this post on the times when the author had one compile a day. That’s slower than I had, but we did have time limits on the computer, as well as printer limits, when I was in college. The compile/fix a syntax error/recompile/test cycle  that we have now wasn’t an option. Making too many simple mistakes would result in missed assignments.

    Limiting developers to one compile a day wouldn’t work these days, but I wonder if limiting the number of compiles might result in developers spending a little more time thinking about their code, their logic, and writing applications with a little more care?

    Or would they follow the same process they follow now, only slower?

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts