Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • TSQL for Beginners–#RGCommunityCircle

    As a part of the Redgate Community Circle, giving back in this strange time, each of the advocates for Redgate is teaching a free course. We’re doing this live each week, according to this schedule:

    I decided to watch a class of each of the others’ work and write about it. This post looks at the first class from Kendra Little on basic T-SQL.

    Basic T-SQL

    I know a lot of T-SQL, but I also don’t know a lot. I’m good, maybe above average, but not a great query writer. I learn all the time from others, and often find something interesting in basic presentations. I’m also always looking to see how others teach basic topics to improve my own skills.

    Kendra has done an interesting thing with putting her course on GitHub. That’s a great idea, though for mine, I am following articles on SQLServerCentral. Having a good outline and resources for students is a good idea, and everyone ought to be able to use a VCS, including GitHub, so I like putting pages here and code in a repo.

    Why is that good? This is what I did to start following Kendra’s class:

    2020-05-01 10_15_26-cmd

    Now I can open the first script in ADS. On top of seeing how Kendra teaches, I get to practice some ADS stuff.

    2020-05-01 10_17_28-1_SelectAndAlias_Demo.sql - disconnected - TSQLBeginners - Azure Data Studio

    I like the doorstop at the end, and I’ll have to think about that for my demo scripts. I’ve accidentally run the entire script too many times.

    Kendra walks through a number of query concepts with a series of basic SELECT statements, including an emoji for a column alias. I’m glad she lets you know which items are not recommended.

    The first course is helping you understand some of the ways in which you can get data from tables. You do need to have a slight understanding of what a table is, but Kendra helps you learn some of the strange ways that you can put together a statement. There is a lot to cover, but this should help someone that wants to learn some basics get started.

    There is also homework, included as part of the scripts in the course. The questions are at the bottom, and called out. A good way to get you to practice. I should do this for my work in places as well.

    2020-05-01 11_09_20-1_SelectAndAlias_Demo.sql - Plato_SQL2017.sandbox (Integrated) - TSQLBeginners -

    Pass this course along to someone that needs to get better at T-SQL. It’s not too fast or hard, and will let them be sure they have a grounding in good ways to write queries.

  • Goal Progress–Apr 2020

    Time for my monthly progess report on goals. I set goals and had an update last month. This month, I’ve had a reminder for 4 days that says “work on goals” on my desktop. The reason it says 4 days is that I dismissed it last week. Otherwise it would say 11 days.

    Reading

    I haven’t tackled the non fiction, non technical book other than a few pages. However I did go through another chapter in the Pro Power BI Desktop book. Most of the intermediate chapters I skimmed through last month or early this month were based on loading data from different sources. Those are all variations on a theme, so I didn’t do much more than skim.

    Chapter 7, however, on transforming data, was more interesting. This is where I can use some skills, and where I learned how to do somethings like change the locale interpretation for data. Things I need to do since I work with UK data at times and I’m a US date person. I practiced a few things so I did learn a bit.

    Projects

    No specific progress, but I did start working on a live stairway class, going through DAX stuff, which will help me here.

    Report

    Overall, I’m failing at these goals, but coping with life.

    I’ll give myself a D for now.

  • Register for Data Platform Discovery on Apr 29

    The agenda is out for the US Data Platform Discovery Day. It’s online, and takes place this Wednesday, April 29, 2020. You can register and check out all the sessions, covering a wide variety of topics.

    I’m not speaking, but there are some great speakers in the US edition. Register today if you want a little learning this week.

  • Is Now the Time to Learn?

    With many of us shut in our homes, it’s a stressful time. We’re often managing work, family, and the rest of our lives from an unchanging environment. If you’re like me, you may struggle to tell one day from the next. Thankfully I have an app the keeps the date in the corner of my desktop, since I have to check it regularly to remember if it’s Tuesday or Thursday.

    Some of us are busy, or busier, and some not as busy. Stress has changed, and I know quite a few people looking for some break in their routine. At Redgate, we’ve started the Community Circle, which has some technical resources if you’re trying to learn more or level up your skills. Some people are finding this to be a good time to tackle technical stuff, but not everyone feels that way.

    Personally, I am doing a little more, or was before I got really busy at work, but more I need a break. I have been trying to do things away from work, mostly to just change my routine. I also have been doing a bit less overall, mostly because I’m struggling to find more mental energy to focus after work.

    I saw this post from Kenneth Fisher, where he asked the same question and showed that he’s trying to learn to juggle. I have been doing a bit more guitar, which I find relaxing. As the weather improves, I’m looking forward to sitting outside with a drink in the evenings and just learning a new song or playing something old.

    The lack of movement for many of us does mean more time, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you want to focus on learning something. If you do, there are lots of resources, and we’ll keep providing information at SQLServerCentral. If you can’t focus, then maybe you just want to relax and consume something fun. My wife and I have gone through the Oscar Best Picture nominees, one every few days, which has been fun. However, you might try picking up a fun new skill, like juggling. A break trying something new, laughing at yourself, or just getting away from life, might help you cope better.

    Steve Jones