Expanding your exprience into other areas(such as web dev). how do you do it?

  • Since I left college I've worked in SQL Server as an Level 3 support analyst and DBA. Thats what I know.

    Many of my friends went down the development route. They are proficient in things like Java, c sharp and .NET, ASP.NET, ASP MVC, web services etc along with basic database knowledge.

    At my current position there is no opportuinity get educated on these topics. Although Im famliar with all these areas from the perspective that I touched on them in college, I could never apply for a job to gain exprience in them as I dont have enough to begin with.

    eg. Creating a simple site in ASP.NET is a huge challenge for me. I can do the datbase design behind it, most of the c sharp coding, but the UI and design aspect is simply a step too high.

    How much knowledge of other areas do you have outside of databases, how did you get it, and how would you advise someone interested in getting some of this knowledge but does not have the option to dig into it in their current position, and has to spend all their spare time trying to master things like sql performance managment and all that stuff that makes someone into a great dba?

  • Hi Winston

    I've got experiences in different other programming languages and technologies - because I'm a developer 😀

    Back to your question:

    If you are interested in some other technologies you can start developing some tools which help to make your DBA business easier. I've seen many DBAs doing the same things again and again, try to automate those things. Probably there are some scripts or SQL statements you call many times every day on one or several servers to monitor backlogs or something else. Create a little tool which calls them periodically and sends you a mail, plays a sound or does any other alert to inform you about a potential problem. You can start with a console application to reduce the initial complexity. When everything works fine, you can move the functionality into a web- or windows-application. So you can increase your experience within your daily business. 😉

    Greets

    Flo

  • Hi Winston,

    The reason for your problems with Asp.net is Microsoft web controls are unfinished products that only users knows what is missing and the fixes. You need a book and in Asp.net there is only one Asp.net Unleashed in Asp.net 3.5 it is almost 2000 pages but he covers everything code included, you may not read but it is the one place to look things up. There are many starter kits those are also unfinished application with user cleaned up versions. The second link there are many tutorials that can help you but they also leave out very important technical details that you need to understand what they are doing.

    Asp.net is complicated but everybody pretends it is easy because they are competing against page engines like Word press where developers just design the UI and is clueless about the actual application. You can contact me anytime if I cannot fix it I know who have existing code. Please don't feel bad most Microsoft code require third party adding the missing technical detail needed to get your code to work as expected.

    http://www.amazon.com/ASP-NET-3-5-Unleashed-Stephen-Walther/dp/0672330113

    http://www.asp.net/learn/

    Kind regards,
    Gift Peddie

  • I'd recommend the book route as well.

    If you want to go back and read through the archives, you can also use 4 Guys From Rolla[/url] as a good site to learn things.

  • Check out http://www.w3schools.com they have a lot of good tutorials to give you the syntax and some usage samples. A few hours there will give you a framework to fill in with the information from the books.

  • Bill Scott-904735 (9/22/2009)


    Check out http://www.w3schools.com they have a lot of good tutorials to give you the syntax and some usage samples. A few hours there will give you a framework to fill in with the information from the books.

    The W3school site Asp.net examples is html I don't think he needs to start there because Visual Studio takes care of that, the link Steve posted is a good site but Scott Mitchell like most experts leave out things a new developer needs to know.

    Kind regards,
    Gift Peddie

  • I agree and think w3schools is really basic. But check it out and see what you think.

    The 4 Guys site is good, but you'd really need to go back to the ASP.NET 1.0 articles, and follow them through from day 1. It would help you convert over from ASP, which in my mind is pretty basic scripting.

    I'd actually love a good tutorial for the basic DBA that hasn't done any Visual Studio, .NET, ASP.NET, etc. development. Get them setup in the environment and then building things with good habits. How do you go from zero, build in security, monitoring, styles, etc.

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