Leanring from Experts

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Leanring from Experts

  • As a junior BI consultant I'm still in the learning curve for SQL Server.

    A few months back I was preparing a deployment of an ETL project that I wrote. I spent hours scripting the tables, the indexes and a few triggers, using the script as create to functionality of SSMS. When I showed my work to a senior colleague, he told me I could've simply used the generate scripts task of the databasse. You can do everything there, with just a few mouse-clicks. Besides the light bulb moment, it was also a D'oh moment 🙂

    Need an answer? No, you need a question
    My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
    MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP

  • My best learned lesson about productivity was when I started working with a multi-monitor setup. It saves a lot of time in programming when everything is there for you just a glance away (management studio, visual studio, notepad, browser, email, etc...)

  • Totally agree with you on that Damus, although I dont have my dual screens at work any more 🙁

  • Sorry to hear that. Try to get one on your own (even a cheap one helps), I cannot imagine myself programming without at least 2 monitors.

    /sigh

  • Ah not going to happen I'm afraid - I work for a bank so bringing my own gear in is a big no no :-1 it is for now 🙂

  • Unfortunately, kids coming out of school today do not want to pay their dues as most of us had to do back in the day. They want to make $80K within a year and think they have all the answers and don't tend to listen to anyone. Believe me, I have seen alot of them come and GO over the recent years. 🙂

    "Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"

  • Nice editorial... I always like observing those small things... To share my experience here, its from my early days of website development... One of my senior was making changes to HTML files wherever required in a smart way. He use 'Find' (cntrl+f) and search for a string that is unique (not more than 4 letters) and go right to that place and make changes. From then I am counting on how many key I press before making any 'Fixes'.

  • Back in 86 I was working with an experienced programmer on one of my first projects. I was using Cobol, he was using RPG. He was doing things in 8 lines of code that took me 500 in Cobol.

    He told me his mantra which was:

    How do you measure a man, by the work he does or by the number of steps it takes to complete the same job?

    To this day, I still enjoy coding and use Ray's mantra during projects.

  • If you like two monitors, try three! Two is a major improvement, but three is where it's at. One for VS, SSMS, and the third can be outlook or IE with sqlservercentral.com open or other "research" sites.

    Back to the roofing reference...I'm a hobby woodworker and I've been upgrading a few of my tools to a brand called FESTOOL from Germany. The "FES" stands for Faster, Easier, Smarter. They are expensive ($600 for a cordless drill!), but well worth it! I try to make everything I do at my day job to follow the FES attitude.

  • I guess my first big ah-HA! moment was learning hot key functions - not leaving the keyboard seemed SO convenient vs. grabbing for the mouse.

    Now... the roofer in the graphic that went with this article... seems like HE'S in for an ah-HA! moment if he were to plug the air hose into his staple gun! 😛

    (BTW- I also did roofing through high school)

  • "One of my earliest jobs was working as a roofer, which was hot, dirty work..." - very interesting part of your experience Andy. How many years before!?

    Roofer ......really interesting experience road to ..... SQL top-notch professional!

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    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/[/url]

  • My "aha" moments don't usually come from my colleagues, but rather from various gurus out here in internet-land: Itzik Ben-Gan, Peter Larsson ("Peso"), Sean McCown, Joe Celko, Barry Young, Jeff Moden, Jack Corbett, Bob Bruckner, Devin Knight, Brian Knight, Andy Warren.. to name a few. Discussion forums provide the teachable moments for me, even if the topic isn't of immediate concern. I like learning from others' challenges, and how they are solved.

    Only one person (that unfortunately no longer works here) had a talent for SSIS that just blows my mind. Anytime I need to dive into one of his SSIS packages, I find that I have a range of emotions from "inspired" to "intimidated". Every assumption about the data is run through a test to ensure complete integrity; dozens of variables defined for auditing, processes broken down into the smallest of steps to ensure quick investigation of a problem in a specific step in the ETL chain. Utterly amazing, and yet it doesn't seem over done; just built properly to account for all things that should go right and might go wrong.

  • I worked building barns and whatnot for a few years. The guys I worked with taught me how to hold a bunch of nails in my one hand, using your ring and baby finger to feed a constant supply to the thumb and index. This reduced trips to the nail pouch.

    A few years after this I had to build some sets out of plywood for a local theatre production and I blew all the other guys away with my nailing speed.

  • My "aha" moments don't usually come from my colleagues, but rather from various gurus out here in internet-land

    Same here. As a "lone developer" I value sites like SqlServerCentral and StackOverflow very much. A throw-away remark in one of the posts, or a clever query snippet can spark one of those AHA moments

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