T-SQL Tuesday #97 – Learning Goals

Words: 673

Time to read: ~ 3.5 minutes

Why did 5 eat 6?

T-SQL Tuesday, the brainchild of Adam Machanic ( Blog | Twitter ), is back again for its 97th installment. This time it’s thanks to Malathi Mahadevan ( Blog | Twitter ) and the topic is about “Learning Goals“.

Because 7 ate 9…

There’s a never ending waterfall of new information out there. How do you get a handle on what to learn when you’re constantly bombarded by all that is available?

What has helped me in the past is focusing on 3 core areas to learn i.e. Future Work, Current Work, and Personal.

For each of these areas, I further break this down into 3 topics per area. That way, I know that I’m not leaving stuff to chance and can get a good wide sweep.

3 by 3…9 things.

Why did 7 eat 9?

Future Work:

1. Azure
   Wave of the future! If you’re not already learning this, then you’re already behind. There isn’t really anything else to say…Get on that!
2. Cosmos DB
   Ever since I watched the keynote at PASS Summit, Cosmos DB has been on the list. Especially since we have a few databases over 10TB and we just need the scale.
3. Containers
   I’ve always been a fan of Andrew Pruski’s ( Blog | Twitter ) work and, with the shift to the DevOps mindset (plus the DBA team’s insistence of proper testing), I can see a real need for this going forward.

Current Work:

1. Always On Availability Groups
   We have these in our environments and there have been a few problems lately that the Senior DBA has had to fix. I know enough to monitor but that’s around it. I don’t like not being able to help out so this is definitely up there!
2. Virtual Machines
   We’re currently using VMs for a couple of Dev & Test environments. I come from a straight-laced SQL background so any information I can learn that is outside that (network, storage, etc.), I figure will help me to be a better DBA.
3. PowerShell
   I’ve started to integrate this into the work environment, especially with any repetitive tasks. I have actually lost count of the hours that I’ve saved with this so I will take any and all improvements.

Personal Work:

1. Pester
   I am loving this the more that I use it. There’s so much freedom in knowing that you can modify a script and know that you can catch any unwanted errors that may creep in there.
   If you don’t use this, I highly advise that you do. I never realized how much you worry about bugs when coding until you don’t have to worry about them when coding because Pester will pick them up. It is a massive load off of your mind and frees up Brain CPU power!
2. Python
   This came about with some automation work but I’ve been looking at a few posts by people like Ginger Grant ( Blog | Twitter ) and I was hooked! While I don’t know nearly enough to be a proper Data Scientist, the thought of statistics, maths, analysis, and reporting is inciting.
   I say Python instead of R because only because of language familiarity (and I wouldn’t be able to stop with the Pirate jokes).
3. Speaking
   I’ll admit that I am tempted by this…
   I don’t know what subjects I have enough knowledge in to help people out with but I would like to be able to help out with the knowledge spread. Randomly reading, I came across the following quote:

A person teaching and a person learning should have the same end in view: the improvement of the latter.

This pretty much sums up how I believe DBAs should be. Hoarding of knowledge just isn’t the right way. If you are going to learn then you have an onus on passing that information on.
I hope to help with that

Because 7 needed 3 squared meals a day!

Woah, I honestly didn’t know that I had that much plans for 2018 until I wrote them down. Many thanks to Malathi for the topic.

Now I just need to follow through on all this…better put on some coffee…