tap, tap... tap... is this thing on?
In T-SQL the option: SET NOCOUNT OFF is used to enable 'chatty' communication with the Server while stored-procedures are being executed. In other words, this is going to be a chatty post which should be fine as it's my first post to sqladvice, and I want to use it to try and introduce myself a bit. In the future, I'll try to keep my chatty posts on sqladvice to a minimum. Don't get me wrong: I love to chat and ramble on, but thankfully I've got a personal/.NET blog for chattiness: http://angrypets.com/blog.
One of the reasons I want to try and keep chattiness down here is that we all know that anymore, each new day heralds the birth of scads of new blogs. Sadly, very few of those blogs are worth really paying attention to. My goal: to provide blog content that's worth people's time; specifically developer's who want to really understand SQL Server.
A bit about me:
So, you're probably wondering: who is Michael K. Campbell?
Well, that's me. Only I prefer to go by Mike most of the time. I only go by Michael K. Campbell when I want to feel/sound important. You scoff, but there have been all sorts of studies that show that people can be VERY finicky in their perceptions; there's ample research to show that taller people make more money than their shorter peers, people who wear glasses instead of contacts are perceived as smarter... etc. But enough of that. Actually..... that tangent we just experienced is very telling about my personality; you see I'm VERY susceptible to tangents. And the tangents that interest me most are those that border on how people think, and how they form their perceptions. (I'm also drawn like a moth to useless trivia.) Another thing you should know about me: I'm a bloody perfectionist. Frankly, given the fact that I'm easily drawn into tangents, and that I'm loathe to let go of anything I undertake until it is completed perfectly makes me wonder how I EVER manage to get anything done...
What draws me to SQL Server/Development?
Money. Ha! I bet you thought my motives were more pure. Actually, they are more pure than just a lust for money ... and it's a long story (but I got your attention). About 6 years ago all that I wanted to be was an Egyptologist. Period. I was studying my butt off at Brigham Young University (which has an outstanding undergrad Near Eastern Studies Program)... and was well on my way. I had desire, I had drive, I had a great GPA, and I had excellent professors. Honestly, I was as happy as a pig in mud (well, most of the time -- though Arabic drove me to tears some days (I'd easily spend 7 hours/day studying Arabic and I STILL wasn't learning fast enough) though I still absolutely love the language and culture in general). Anyhow, there I was pursuing a double-major in Cultural Anthropology and Near Eastern Studies as well as working on a Minor in Classical Studies (Greek Culture/Civilization) when my wife, bless her heart, thought I would be well served by setting up an appointment to meet with one of the Egyptologists on campus about career plans; you know, the-ins-and-the-outs. Well, after meeting with one of the Egyptologists on campus, one thing became patently clear: I'd probably never be out of debt if I went ahead with my plans. You see after graduating BYU I would have had to have gone to the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute (my first choice) or Yale for 10 to 12 years. Hey, I would have loved it. But at almost $30,000/semester (plus living expenses for my small family) I would have had ONE HELL OF A STUDENT LOAN to pay off when I was done with school. Then couple that with the fact that that even the LUCKY Egyptologists in the US make less than $50k/year, and you can see why I say that money 'brought' me to my current position in life...
My First Camero
There's a great quote in the comedy While you were Sleeping where the heroine, Lucy, is accosted by her landlord's moron son, Joe Junior (who has a crush, sorta, on Lucy). Joe Junior, who's really nothing more than a grown child, is amazed that Lucy doesn't like him back (and trust me, he's a true piece-of-work).
Astonished, and jealous of the guy Lucy is beginning to date, Joe Junior says “I know that look.”
”What Look?” responds Lucy incrediuosly.
“Like you just seen your first Camero,” responds Joe Junior intently (yet offended).
Let me tell you about my first 'Camero':
I've ALWAYS loved computers. I'm ashamed to admit it, but the (now cheesy) movie War Games made me totally want a computer as a kid. As a 12 year old I fantasized about having my own computer. I dreamed I could keep all my data securely locked up and in my computer (to this day I still have NO IDEA what kind of data I was even thinking I'd have when I fantasized...).
Happily a few days after first seeing “War Games“ my father, brought home a Commodore VIC-20. My brother and I spent many an hour programming games (in BASIC) into that archaic pig. Later my father ran a computer lab at the local college and I spent an awful lot of time there with him during the summers... so I've always been around computers. And so it happened, many years later, that one day I just happened to see Microsoft Access. It was, purely and simply, like seeing my first Camero. The silly thing is that what REALLY impressed me about Access was the notion that if I knew how to use MS Access I'd be able to keep track of my collection of miniatures. (cough, cough... um, anyone still here?).
So, I went out and purchased Microsoft Office Pro JUST to be able to play with Access, and to learn how to use it (so that I could keep track of little army guys in a 'database'). Eventually the company I was working at during school had a position open up that required some light skills in Access, as well as better skills in Excel and Word. I tried out for the job and landed it. All I was expected to do was about 35 hours/week of data entry and a few hours of reports. It didn't take me long to realize I was just duplicate-entering the same data into a few different spreadsheets and some existing databases. So, after getting my footing, I began figuring out how to make Excel do my job for me. I used macros to 'copy' and massage data as needed into the various Excel SpreadSheets I had to fill out. After tackling that I began delving into the inner workings of Access. I'm still amazed, but I primarily learned how to do things in Access by reading the MS documentation that comes with it. In fact, to my dying day, I'll consider that one of my major professional successe; I REALLY must have wanted to learn how to use Access to have learned it from the docs. (And I REALLY did want to learn Access... cuz I really wanted to keep track of my miniatures in a spiffy database (you see, I really am a Geek)).
Eventually I began delving into VBA and the inner workings of Access. Then I bought my first database book, which I still own: Roger Jennings' Using Access 2000 (I'd already purchased a book about Front-Page (ack!) earlier as I was interested in building websites just for the heck of it). It was a great book (no, the Access Book, not that nasty Front-Page thingy) that taught me oodles about Jet, VBA, and SQL (hey, I was a liberal arts major at the time). My buddy Carson kept telling me that some of the crud I was turning out for work (some of the databases I'd custom built) actually looked good, and since I liked it so much I might think about doing it professionally. This was all about the time I had my talk with the Egyptologist at BYU, and the reality of THAT plan had started setting in.
So, I quickly changed course as much as possible. This was right at the upswing of the 'bubble days' and even morons with a few skills like me could make decent bucks working on “the internet.“ So, I finished up my degree in Near Eastern Studies as quickly as possible, and plunked down $1,700 in earnest for MCSD training that would 'learn me how' to make internet applications. Presenting database data via the web was just the coolest thing I'd seen, and I was excited to get MCSD training to teach me how to do it.
Then I decided to do the impossible, and tried out for a job at MyComputer.com. MyComputer.com was a full-blown, real-life dotcom that was in the process 'growing the business' to the tune of burning millions... and they hired me. Partially they were desperate for bodies, and partially they were impressed that I knew what an outer join was with just one book and the Access docs to have pointed the way, so they stuck me in as junior zombie processing mySQL queries on a federated cluster of DBs (there were like 90 servers in all, my group was in charge of 10-12 of them which were dedicated to raw, unadulterated, OLTP baby... man was it a hoot). While at MyComputer.com I learned oodles about PHP, mySQL, and even had my own project were I was responsible for testing a planned move from mySQL to Oracle. (Oracle still doesn't impress me much to this day, even though I've worked with it a number of times.)
As for the MCSD training? Well, that never happened. I was too busy working at MyComputer.com and moonlighting on ASP/SQL Server jobs during the night (mostly to gain experience) that I never had time to get the training. I was able to get $500 of my $1,700 back... and they let me keep the “Technical Center“ satchel...(I call it my $1,200 bag). As time progressed I had the excellent opportunity to work with my buddy Carson over at FrogBody Interactive. That was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun, and the best professional experience of my life. (Not only was it Carson that got me started in development, but he also keyed me in on the value of list-serves. It was list-serves that helped me tremendously when it came to problems that I just couldn't find in the ever-increasing library of books I'd begun to amass. Eventually I became a full-blown 'lurker' on the lists, until I actually became smart enough to begin answer questions on my own... )
At one point I tried a solo gig for a while, and then went back to working for 'the man.' That's where you'll find me today... still working for 'da man.' There are obviously lots of down sides to working for the man, but one of the nice things (besides a steady paycheck, being a 'solo-ist' during the bubble-burst was not all that exciting) about working for the man is that you usually get to do things along the lines of enterprise development... but that's going to have to be another topic/post.
A bit about my intentions on sqladvice:
Whew... that was a ton of babbling up above. Hopefully it will give you an indication of who/what I am. As for what I intend to do here: well, I've already somewhat answered that above in the introduction to this post. My number one goal here is to not publish crap (other than the stuff you just read). To that end, I'll probably only post once or twice a week. But my hope is that you'll find the information good enough to keep you coming back. In other words, I want to make sure this blog remains a REPEATABLE READ.