SQL Server World

When the last time you have done nothing?

There is so much we miss out in this world and in our life by just not being present in present. We equate not doing anything to wasting time. In reality it is quite the opposite. I have experienced it myself and the feeling is so freeing and exhilarating that you will regret why you have not experienced it before. I think the old saying “idle mind is a Devil’s workshop” has misled us.

We are in this world for a short period of time and yet 50% of our time we are thinking about something that is not present. Weather we are listening to enticing music or watching a favorite TV show or reading an interesting book, we will not add these adjectives if we are not focused on what we are doing. An enticing music becomes irritable if some nagging thought in your mind keep bothering you. A favorite TV Show becomes boring if you constantly think about what you have to do next. An interesting reading becomes a chore if you are feeling anxious and stressful.

Actually I love all these 3 activities that I have used as an example here. So I have no problem on focusing on these activities. But there are other areas such as work and social life where I want to learn to apply this thinking. The benefit would be more satisfied business interaction which in turn will result in doing it again and again. It is just like a happiness cycle, once you start it it will get the momentum of its own.

My journey of learning Advanced T-SQL

Who absolutely look forward to annual performance reviews at work? I do not consider myself in this group. I hate the logistic part of it. Tons of rows to fill in. Sometimes questions are ambiguous or repetitive or just plain senseless. Long story short, I got my annual performance review and lets say it was above average but my manager suggested one development goal for me and it  was to get training on Advanced T-SQL queries.

Do not get me wrong. I am a DBA for more than 10 years and I can write tsql and keep myself updated with the addition and changes in tsql syntax with the new versions of sql server. I do lot of reading and researching in my areas of expertise (High Availability, Disaster Recovery and performance tuning) almost daily. I do not consider myself to be a DBA developer. I never have to write complex stored procedures or views or triggers etc. According to my manager, this is where I can grow more. Let’s keep the discussion of whether I agree with him or not for a later time. I planned to take this as a challenge. I have grown in so many areas, why not excel in this one too? Real challenge is to work on something which is outside of your comfort zone and you have to make yourself do it.

So I decided to blog my journey of Advanced T-SQL Learning. I searched the net but have not found any classroom training that meets my need. But there is lot of material (Blogs, YouTube videos, books, white papers, BOL etc ) available. And this was one of the reason, I never concentrated on learning development stuff because whenever I needed something I always find that T-SQL or PowerShell  script online written by MVPs and other very intelligent people of the SQL World (Wait this sounds like name of my Blog!)  available. With little tweaking I was able to use it and it definitely served the purpose.

Anyways, this is how I plan to learn and blog about Advance T-SQL. I will select one item such as advanced error handling or CTE or DMVs etc an d will work on each piece for a week. So I will write one blog per week for 4 weeks. Then I will summarize my 4 weeks of learning in the 5th week blog with examples or maybe little project or something fun. Then again I will start the cycle of learning to get to the next T-SQL concept.

As for now, my intention with this blog is that it is for my own eyes only. It will also serve as a reminder\repository\evidence etc of what I have learned and achieved. This will also be a tool down the road, when going gets tough, to remind me how persistent I was and as a result I will get new motivation to move forward.

Cheers to Learning and Blogging!