Voice of the DBA

Tag: Pluralsight

  • Pluralsight is Amazing

    I used to work for a digital learning company early in the modern Internet. We were ahead of our time and struggled to sell online learning at the turn of the millennium. Bandwidth limitations held back video courses from widescale adoption. I moved on when the company folded, but I’ve watched other companies start to build and grow video training across the years. One of them that I’ve been most impressed with is Pluralsight. In fact, I very much appreciate their customer service.

    I try to make time every week to watch something. I don’t always get to any bits of learning, which is the way things go. Life is busy, and some days I don’t have the mental energy. I do try to download a course or two to my phone for long plane rides and other travel. I’ve even had a few modules playing on long drives or in my headphones while skiing. Of course, I can’t watch the screen during those events, but I can listen and try to learn something on the go. I’ve even whiled away sessions on the stationary bike with a Pluralsight course playing in front of me. It’s not deep learning, but it’s a way of looking at something that I find interesting. I often will go back and try a bit of code later.

    I don’t focus too tightly on SQL Server with Pluralsight as I get plenty of that elsewhere, but sometimes I use their courses for investigation into other areas. I’ve listened to Chef and Puppet courses, C#, ASP MVC, Python, and more. I don’t always use the skills directly, but a little learning does help me understand the larger view of how technology works. I’ve found throughout my career that having some good general knowledge in various areas helps me troubleshoot and understand the larger picture, often helping me find an issue in a complex system quicker. I also get ideas on why I might consider some other type of technology as a way of improving an application in the future.

    I certainly hope that most of you continue to come to SQLServerCentral to get ideas, learn something, and get questions answered. My mission with this site is to help others become better SQL Server professionals. We may add some video to go with our written work, and certainly I think we could improve some assessments and testing. If there are areas you’d like to see more content, let us know.

    However, we can’t do what Pluralsight does with their long courses and variety of topics. If you get the chance, or have a subscription, check them out. They provide a great learning resource that I’d recommend.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Pluralsight for Another Year

    One of the ways that I try to keep current and learn is through Pluralsight. I’m lucky to get a subscription as a Data Platform MVP, but I’m sure Redgate would pay for one if I didn’t.

    My subscription ran out last week, but the support staff at Pluralsight was kind enough to renew me in minutes. Amazing service and greatly appreciated.

    If you haven’t tried online learning, I’d give it a go. Pluralsight has some great courses, but there are other choices as well. No matter what you choose, making some regular time to learn something fun, or improve those skills you use every day is a great way to keep your career moving forward.

  • A Little Learning with Pluralsight

    I’ve been working on a new presentation on testing using the tSQLt framework and was curious how other people are using the framework. I read through the documentation and various articles on Simple Talk. I also went through the Google Group and StackOverflow tags for tSQLt, gathering lots of viewpoints on how the framework is used.

    However I wanted more. I’ve tested T-SQL code before, but usually in the simplistic way that I see most SQL Server developers running tests. Contriving a bit of data, building a query that checks things, and moving on. I’ve never written formal SQL tests, and wanted to learn something.

    I turned to my friend, Google, and was surprised to see a course on Pluralsight pop up. I didn’t think tSQLt was popular enough to build a course, but apparently it was, so I signed on and went through the course. It was interesting, and I got a nice set of hints on how Dave Green uses tSQLt and some ideas on how I could enhance my presentation.

    Then I went looking for a few more courses. Since I was a bit laid up with my knee surgery, I was stuck in bed and rather than watch TV, I wandered around the Pluralsight site a bit. I was surprised to find a course on SQL Prompt and went through that, getting a few tips and tricks that I hadn’t used before. I also started a course on CTEs from Joe Sack, and I’ve learned a couple tricks in there.

    Overall, I’m impressed with Pluralsight. I’ve had a subscription for some time as an MVP, but hadn’t accessed it. However I’ll be spending a few minutes here and there working my way through the offerings, trying to learn a bit more about SQL Server, as well as tackle some C# and security.