A Better Developer in 6 months? Deal!

Adam: I hear you on the courses and the TK. My experience is that some of the course do teach me a new trick here or there, especially when they move into parts of SQL Server I'm less comfortable with; others teach me nothing new but can act as a preparation for the kind of questioning one can expect when going for certification (though I'm still unsure about whether to do that or not - I feel that MVP says a lot more than MCTS or MCITP, but I'm not sure if people who do the hiring all agree).

All the books on my reading list were given to me for free. I might finish them very quickly if I feel they do nothing but waste my time.

RS: My time limitations? A fantastic wife and two equally fantastic children (aged 9 and 10) take part of my time; there's my work (32 hours per week officially, but since I own 50% of the company stock and work from home, real work time varies immensely), household chores (my wife works as well, so I don't have the luxury of a fulltime housewife doing all the chores - and neither the bad luck of a fulltime housewife having allt he fun with the kids), local volunteer work, the occasional speaking engagement ... plus, I have to sleep as well (about 6 hours per night, on average).

Most newsgroup and blogging activities are crammed in the time slot between 9PM (bedtime for the kids) and 1AM (bedtime for me), unless that time is spent entertaining guests, doing volunteer work, watching a movie with my wife, or just playing the occasional game.

July has passed - a great moment for a first progress report.

* Books - currently on page 198 of Inside SQL ServerT-SQL Programming. At this rate, I don't think I'll finish the stack before the end of the year.

* Blog - exactly two non-technical posts in July.

* CTP - nothing done in this department. Baaaad!!!

* Usenet - According to Agent, I posted a grand total of 102 messages to SQL Server related newsgroups during all of July. Better than June, and the second half of July is also slightly better than the first half - but not nearly the 200 messages I promised!

* E-learning - Well, collection 2790 expired before I could finish it. Probably just as well, as I spent more time pointing out the errors in the course material to MS folk than perusing them, and I don't think I learned anything from it. Not that I expected the latter; I enrolled out of curiosity, but I was certainly disappointed by the former. I expected SOME errors, but not so many.

To compensate for not finishing this collection, I now enrolled in a new one: Collection 2784: Tuning and Optimizing Queries Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005. But I'll first have to finish collection 2781, of which I have now finished the first of six workshops, before that one expires as well.

Bottom line: I'm not really doing great :-(  But considering the fact that I've been ill for two weeks, I guess it could have been worse. I'll be on a two-week holiday in August, so next month won't see as much progress either, except maybe on the books. (Though I might choose to read Harry Potter first)

Expect the next update in a month or so.

High time for my post-August progress report. I've realised only a tiny fraction of my plans. Part of that was expected - being on holiday for the second half of August, I never expected to read much or post anything during that time. I had planend to prepare some blog entries for posting later during my holiday - but as you may have read in my blog post of today, I had to shift my priorities toward preparing for some speaking opportunities.

* Books - Still reading Inside SQL Server T-SQL Programming, but advancet to page 400.

* CTP - No progress

* Usenet - Posted 82 messages during the first half of August (a bit less than what I aimed for), and of course nothing in the second half

* E-learning - Finished collections 2781 and 2790. Didn't start collection 2784 yet.

September has gone by, so let's take a look at how I'm doing.

* Books - Finished Inside SQL Server T-SQL Programming, and started in A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005. Since this is more oriented towards .Net than to T-SQL, I find I have to read this more slowly than my usual reading speed. On the other hand, I might benefit more from it as well. Anyway, I am currently at page 109.

* CTP - I did download the pre-installed Virtual Machine with the July CTP. Twice. And both times, I got an error message that informed me that the archive was corrupt. Blech!

* Usenet - Only 98 messages posted this month.

* E-learning - Finished the first of six workshops for collection 2784.

See ya next month!

Oh, and by the way ... when will *YOU* post the next update of your six-month project, Denis "SQL Menace" Gobo? The last update I found on your pownce page seems to be dated July 19...

Time for my October update.

* Books - still reading A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005. Page 238. I spent very little time reading this month, partly because the book doesn't grab me as some other books do.

* Blog - I somehow forgot to include this in previous updates, but I did manage the promised two posts in both september and october.

* CTP - guess what? Indeed, no progress. I will definitely install the next CTP though, since I have agreed to do three talks on SQL Server 2008 in the first quarter of next year, *and* agreed to do tech edit for a SQL Server 2008 book, so there's no way I can dodge installing a CTP next month!

* Usenet - I've hit an all-time low with a meagre 62 messages. If this downwward trend continues, I'll be posting negatiive messages before the six months are over!

* E-learning - No progress. At all. Sorry.

See ya next month!

It's december. November has gone by, and I'm here to tell you how I did.

* Books - A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005 is definitely not a book I can read through at high pace. I am now on page 432.

* Blog - I managed three technical posts last month, therby even exceeding my personal goal of two per month.

* CTP - This is a weird one. I did download CTP5. I did setup a virtual machine, install it with Windows XP. And -yes!- I did start the installation. And again. And so on. I've tried at least four or five times on my desktop, each time with different settings, and once more on a virtual machine on my laptop. Each time I got the same unsuccesfull end result, without any clue as for the reason. I am now patiently awaiting until someone from MS sorts out this mess, hoping that there'll still be enough time left to prepare my talks and tech edit the book once I do finaly get a CTP running.

* Usenet - At 79 messages, I posted slightly more than last month but still way below my target. Too many days, I find myself lacking the time for checking the newsgroups - and when I do check them, all interesting questions are already answered!

* E-learning - As part of the MVP Academy, I enlisted in course 2782 ("Designing Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Databases") and completed all modules this month. Unfortunately, coourse 2784 is now expired so I won't be completing that one anymore :-(

See ya next month for the final wrap-up of this 6-month project.