Microsoft is a bit of a funny company. It has shaped so much of my career and yet it seems adept at shooting itself in the foot.

ODBC as the...

Great article, well written. I'd hope for something this clear if I was on call.

Any idea what caused spid 484 to hang around?

How about the restore speed?

I enjoyed the expensify article.

There seem to be quite a few articles emerging along similar lines. Some of the articles I've seen advocating a slimmed down architecture sized for...

Try Oracle licensing and you will never complain about Microsoft licensing ever again.

I...

Terry Pratchett described how the city of Ankh Morpork dealt with a plague of rats by paying a bounty on dead rats delivered. Despite this the rat problem kept...

Over the years I have had to learn a bit about most things and although some things really weren't my boat I benefitted. This was because they gave context...

I read a blog post about a bloke in a coffee shop who was approached by an old man who turned out to have been one of the most important...

Gary Varga (10/28/2016)

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I really enjoy utilising new technology but as a mature developer I have one fundamental question when a team (including me) wants to roll out new tech:

After the...

I've learned to ask why a particular response occurs and to keep drilling down until I get to the root cause. In architecture this is called the five whys.

Why...

I worked at one place that had an "AS-LIVE" environment. It was an exact copy of the LIVE environment as it was two weeks ago. It was accessible...

Jeff, I feel your pain. I wish I could buy you a pint and share some war stories.

I've been having thoughts about schema-on-read systems. See what you think.

The writing...

The "team" is a fractal. Yes it means those in charge of the product but it also means that product is part of a wider team.

In terms of managers...

"Conflict" is one of those words that can be misconstrued so easily.

Technically a disagreement is a conflict but it's using a strong word where a quieter word will do.

In the...

Safari Books Online is my big spend until my PC goes bang.

I treated myself to a 2nd 24" monitor.

To be honest, I don't spend money on tech until the old...