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Archive for the ‘Developer Training’ Category

Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2

Posted in Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology on May 29, 2012 | 12 Comments »

Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1
Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2
Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3
Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4
Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5

If you have been reading this series of posts about Developer Training, you can probably determine where my mind lies in the matter – firmly “pro.”  There are many reasons to think that training is an excellent idea for the company.  In the end, it may seem like the company gets all the benefits and the employee has just wasted a few hours in a dark, stuffy room.  However, don’t let yourself be fooled, this is not the case!

Training, Company and YOU!

Do not forget, that as an employee, you are your company’s best asset.  Training is meant to benefit the company, of course, but in the end, YOU, the employee, is the one who walks away with a lot of useful knowledge in your head.  This post will discuss what to do with that knowledge, how to acquire it, and who should pay for it.

Eternal Question – Who Pays for Training?

When the subject of training comes up, money is often the sticky issue.  Some companies will argue that because the employee is the one who benefits the most, he or she should pay for it.  Of course, whenever money is discuss, emotions tend to follow along, and being told you have to pay money for mandatory training often results in very unhappy employees – the opposite result of what the training was supposed to accomplish.  Therefore, many companies will pay for the training.  However, if your company is reluctant to pay for necessary training, or is hesitant to pay for a specific course that is extremely expensive, there is always the art of compromise.  The employee and the company can split the cost of the training – after all, both the company and the employee will be benefiting.

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 This kind of “hybrid” pay scheme can be split any way that is mutually beneficial.  There is the obvious 50/50 split, but for extremely expensive classes or conferences, this still might be prohibitively expensive for the employee.  If you are facing this situation, here are some example solutions you could suggest to your employer:  travel reimbursement, paid leave, payment for only the tuition.  There are even more complex solutions – the company could pay back the employee after the training and project has been completed.

Training is not Vacation

Once the classes have been settled on, and the question of payment has been answered, it is time to attend your class or travel to your conference!  The first rule is one that your mothers probably instilled in you as well – have a good attitude.  While you might be looking forward to your time off work, going to an interesting class, hopefully with some friends and coworkers, but do not mistake this time as a vacation.  It can be tempting to only have fun, but don’t forget to learn as well.  I call this “attending sincerely.”  Pay attention, have an open mind and good attitude, and don’t forget to take notes!  You might be surprised how many people will want to see what you learned when you go back.

Report Back the Learning

When you get back to work, those notes will come in handy.  Your supervisor and coworkers might want you to give a short presentation about what you learned.  Attending these classes can make you almost a celebrity.  Don’t be too nervous about these presentations, and don’t feel like they are meant to be a test of your dedication.  Many people will be genuinely curious – and maybe a little jealous that you go to go learn something new.  Be generous with your notes and be willing to pass your learning on to others through mini-training sessions of your own.

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Practice New Learning

On top of helping to train others, don’t forget to put your new knowledge to use!  Your notes will come in handy for this, and you can even include your plans for the future in your presentation when you return.  This is a good way to demonstrate to your bosses that the money they paid (hopefully they paid!) is going to be put to good use.

Feedback to Manager

When you return, be sure to set aside a few minutes to talk about your training with your manager.  Be perfectly honest – your manager wants to know the good and the bad.  If you had a truly miserable time, do not lie and say it was the best experience – you and others may be forced to attend the same training over and over again!  Of course, you do not want to sound like a complainer, so make sure that your summary includes the good news as well.  Your manager may be able to help you understand more of what they wanted you to learn, too.

Win-Win Situation

In the end, remember that training is supposed to be a benefit to the employer as well as the employee.  Make sure that you share your information and that you give feedback about how you felt the sessions went as well as how you think this training can be implemented at the company immediately.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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Developer Training – Importance and Significance – Part 1

Posted in Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology on May 28, 2012 | 22 Comments »

Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1
Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2
Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3
Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4
Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5

Can anyone remember their final day of schooling?  This is probably a silly question because – of course you can!  Many people mark this as the most exciting, happiest day of their life.  It marks the end of testing, the end of following rules set by teachers, and the beginning of finally being able to earn money and work in your chosen field.

Beginning in Real World

However, many former-students will be disappointed to find out that once they become employees, learning is not over.  Many companies are discovering the importance and benefits to training their employees.  You can breathe a sigh of relief, though, because much for this kind of training there are not usually tests!

We often think that we go to school for our younger years so that we do all our learning all at once, and then for the rest of our lives we use that knowledge.  But in so many cases, but especially for developers, the opposite is true.  It takes many years of schools to learn the basics of a field, and then our careers are spent learning to become experts.

For this, and so many other reasons, training is very important.  Example one: developer training leads to better employees.  A company is only as good as the people it employs, and one way to ensure that you have employed the right candidate is through training.  Training can take a regular “stone” and polish it into a “diamond.”  Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product.

Most Expensive Resource

Did you know that one of the most expensive operating costs for any company is not buying goods, or advertising, but its employees – especially having to hire new employees.  Bringing in new people, getting them up to speed, and providing them with perks to attract them to a company is a huge cost for companies.  So employee retention – keep the employees you already have, and keeping them happy – is incredibly important from a business aspect.  And research shows that a well-trained employee is a happy employee.  They feel more confident in their job, happier with their position, and more cared-about – and therefore less likely to leave in search of a better job.  Employee training leads to better retention.

Good Moral

On the subject of keeping employees happy in order to keep them at a company, the complement to that research shows that happier employees are more efficient and overall better at their jobs.  You don’t have to be a scientist to figure out why this is true.  An employee who feel that his company cares about him and his educational future will work harder for the company.  He or she will put in that extra hour during the busy season that makes all the difference in the end.  Good morale is good for the company.

If good morale is better for the company, you know that it goes hand-in-hand with something even better – better efficiency.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects.  That means when a problem crops up – and they inevitably do – this employee will be well-equipped to deal with that problem with fewer problems, and no need to go searching for help from higher up.  When employees are well trained, companies run more smoothly.

A Better Product

Of course, all of these “pros” for employee training are leading up to the one thing that companies truly care about – a better product.  We have shown that employees who have been trained to be competitive in the market are happier at the company, they are more efficient, and their morale is better.  The overall result is that the company’s product – whether it is a database, piece of equipment, or even a physical good – is better.  And a better product will always be more competitive on the market.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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SQL SERVER – SmallDateTime and Precision – A Continuous Confusion

Posted in CodeProject, Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology on May 22, 2012 | 12 Comments »

Some kinds of confusion never go away. Here is one of the ancient confusing things in SQL. The precision of the SmallDateTime is one concept that confuses a lot of people, proven by the many messages I receive everyday relating to this subject.

Let me start with the question: What is the precision of the SMALLDATETIME datatypes?

What is your answer? Write it down on your notepad.

Now if you do not want to continue reading the blog post, head to my previous blog post over here: SQL SERVER – Precision of SMALLDATETIME.

A Social Media Question

Since the increase of social media conversations, I noticed that the amount of the comments I receive on this blog is a bit staggering. I receive lots of questions on facebook, twitter or Google+. One of the very interesting questions yesterday was asked on Facebook by Raghavendra. I am re-organizing his script and asking all of the questions he has asked me. Let us see if we could help him with his question:

CREATE TABLE #temp
(name VARCHAR(100),registered smalldatetime)
GO
DECLARE @test smalldatetime
SET @test=GETDATE()
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value1',@test)
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value2',@test)
GO
SELECT *
FROM #temp
ORDER BY registered DESC
GO
DROP TABLE #temp
GO

Now when the above script is ran, we will get the following result:

Well, the expectation of the query was to have the following result. The row which was inserted last was expected to return as first row in result set as the ORDER BY descending.

Side note: Because the requirement is to get the latest data, we can’t use any  column other than smalldatetime column in order by. If we use name column in the order by, we will get an incorrect result as it can be any name.

My Initial Reaction

My initial reaction was as follows:

1) DataType DateTime2: If file precision of the column is expected from the column which store date and time, it should not be smalldatetime. The precision of the column smalldatetime is One Minute (Read Here) for finer precision use DateTime or DateTime2 data type.

Here is the code which includes above suggestion:

CREATE TABLE #temp
(name VARCHAR(100), registered datetime2)
GO
DECLARE @test datetime2
SET @test=GETDATE()
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value1',@test)
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value2',@test)
GO
SELECT *
FROM #temp
ORDER BY registered DESC
GO
DROP TABLE #temp
GO

2) Tie Breaker Identity: There are always possibilities that two rows were inserted at the same time. In that case, you may need a tie breaker. If you have an increasing identity column, you can use that as a tie breaker as well.


CREATE TABLE #temp
(ID INT IDENTITY(1,1), name VARCHAR(100),registered datetime2)
GO
DECLARE @test datetime2
SET @test=GETDATE()
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value1',@test)
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value2',@test)
GO
SELECT *
FROM #temp
ORDER BY ID DESC
GO
DROP TABLE #temp
GO

Those two were the quick suggestions I provided. It is not necessary that you should use both advices. It is possible that one can use only DATETIME datatype or Identity column can have datatype of BIGINT or have another tie breaker.

An Alternate NO Solution

In the facebook thread this was also discussed as one of the solutions:

CREATE TABLE #temp
(name VARCHAR(100),registered smalldatetime)
GO
DECLARE @test smalldatetime
SET @test=GETDATE()
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value1',@test)
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value2',@test)
GO
SELECT name, registered,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number"
FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC
GO
DROP TABLE #temp
GO

However, I believe it is not the solution and can be further misleading if used in a production server. Here is the example of why it is not a good solution:

CREATE TABLE #temp
(name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,registered smalldatetime)
GO
DECLARE @test smalldatetime
SET @test=GETDATE()
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value1',@test)
INSERT INTO #temp
VALUES ('Value2',@test)
GO
-- Before Index
SELECT name, registered,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number"
FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC
GO
-- Create Index
ALTER TABLE #temp
ADD CONSTRAINT [PK_#temp] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(name DESC)
GO
-- After Index
SELECT name, registered,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number"
FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC
GO
DROP TABLE #temp
GO

Now let us examine the resultset. You will notice that an index which is created on the base table which is (indeed) schema change the table but can affect the resultset. As you can see, an index can change the resultset, so this method is not yet perfect to get the latest inserted resultset.

No Schema Change Requirement

After giving these two suggestions, I was waiting for the feedback of the asker. However, the requirement of the asker was there can’t be any schema change because the application was used by many other applications. I validated again, and of course, the requirement is no schema change at all. No addition of the column of change of datatypes of any other columns. There is no further help as well.

This is indeed an interesting question. I personally can’t think of any solution which I could provide him given the requirement of no schema change. Can you think of any other solution to this?

Need of Database Designer

This question once again brings up another ancient question:  “Do we need a database designer?” I often come across databases which are facing major performance problems or have redundant data. Normalization is often ignored when a database is built fast under a very tight deadline. Often I come across a database which has table with unnecessary columns and performance problems. While working as Developer Lead in my earlier jobs, I have seen developers adding columns to tables without anybody’s consent and retrieving them as SELECT *.  There is a lot to discuss on this subject in detail, but for now, let’s discuss the question first. Do you have any suggestions for the above question?

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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SQL SERVER – Developer Training Kit for SQL Server 2012

Posted in Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology on May 12, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Developer Training Kit is my favorite part of any product. The reason behind is very simple because it give the single resource which gives complete overview of the product in nutshell. A developer can learn from many places – books, webcasts, tutorials, blogs, etc. However, I have found that developer training kits are the best starting point for any product. Start with them first, see what are the new features as well what is the new message a product is coming up with. Once it is learned the very next step should be to identify the right learning material to explore the preferred topic.

The SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit includes technical content including labs, demos and presentations designed to help you learn how to develop SQL Server 2012 database and BI solutions. New and updated content will be released periodically and can be downloaded on-demand using the Web Installer.

Download SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit Web Installer.

This training kit was available earlier this year but it is never late to explore it if you have not referred it earlier. Additionally, if you do not want to download complete kit all together I suggest you refer to Wiki here. This wiki contains all the same presentations and demo notes which web installer contains.

Refer to SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit Wiki

Wiki contains following module and details about Hands On Labs
Module 1: Introduction to SQL Server 2012
Module 2: Introduction to SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn
Module 3: Exploring and Managing SQL Server 2012 Database Engine Improvements
Module 4: SQL Server 2012 Database Server Programmability
Module 5: SQL Server 2012 Application Development
Module 6: SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Information Management
Module 7: SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence
Hands-On Labs: SQL Server 2012 Database Engine
Hands-On Labs: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0
Hands-On Labs: SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Information Management
Hands-On Labs: SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence
Hands-On LabsHands-On Labs: Windows Azure and SQL Azure

As I said, if you have not downloaded this so far, it is never late to explore it. Trust me you will atleast learn one thing if you just explore the content.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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SQLAuthority News – SQL Server 2012 – Microsoft Learning Training and Certification

Posted in Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology on March 10, 2012 | 3 Comments »

Here is the conversion I had right after I had posted my earlier blog post about Download Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RTM Now.

Rajesh: So SQL Server is available for me to download?
Pinal: Yes, sure check the link here.
Rajesh: It is trial do you know when it will be available for everybody?
Pinal: I think you mean General Availability (GA) which is on April 1st, 2012.
Rajesh: I want to have head start with SQL Server 2012 examination and I want to know every single

Exam 70-461: Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012

This exam is intended for SQL Server database administrators, implementers, system engineers, and developers with two or more years of experience who are seeking to prove their skills and knowledge in writing queries.

Exam 70-462: Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases

This exam is intended for Database Professionals who perform installation, maintenance, and configuration tasks as their primary areas of responsibility. They will often set up database systems and are responsible for making sure those systems operate efficiently.

Exam 70-463: Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

The primary audience for this exam is Extract Transform Load (ETL) and Data Warehouse Developers.  They are most likely to focus on hands-on work creating business intelligence (BI) solutions including data cleansing, ETL, and Data Warehouse implementation.

Exam 70-464: Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases

This exam is intended for database professionals who build and implement databases across an organization while ensuring high levels of data availability. They perform tasks including creating database files, creating data types and tables,  planning, creating, and optimizing indexes, implementing data integrity, implementing views, stored procedures, and functions, and managing transactions and locks.

Exam 70-465: Designing Database Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2012

This exam is intended for database professionals who design and build database solutions in an organization.  They are responsible for the creation of plans and designs for database structure, storage, objects, and servers.

Exam 70-466: Implementing Data Models and Reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

The primary audience for this exam is BI Developers.  They are most likely to focus on hands-on work creating the BI solution including implementing multi-dimensional data models, implementing and maintaining OLAP cubes, and creating information displays used in business decision making

Exam 70-467: Designing Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

The primary audience for this exam is the BI Architect.  BI Architects are responsible for the overall design of the BI infrastructure, including how it relates to other data systems in use.

Looking at Rajesh’s passion, I am motivated too! I may want to start attempting the exams in near future.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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