I love it that my first post of the new year is going to be Speaker of the Month. I’m really enjoying doing these because I’m getting to attend a lot more sessions at the events I go to in order to get choices. But, please, don’t bug me. If I can attend your session, I will. If I can’t…

Anyway.

Speaker of the Month for January 2015 is William Wolf (b|t) and his session “Common Coding Mistakes and How to Mitigate Them” that was delivered at SQL Saturday DC.

This was a good session. It was informative. I really liked how Bill (I’m going to use that because it’s easier to type and despite looking like the Demon Biker of the Apocalypse, he’s a bigger sweetheart than I am) kept referencing everything back to his own coding experiences. It’s a fantastic way to make a point and make it stick. Further, it lets the audience know where you’re coming from and why any particular point is important to you. Maybe they haven’t seen this problem much, or at all, and don’t think it’s important. But you’ve seen it burn down the house, so bringing your experience out is just a great way to communicate. I also liked how Bill emphasized each of the points he was trying to make. It wasn’t just a series of slides and examples, but he was making a specific point with each and the code reflected that, but Bill emphasized it. He really followed the “this is what I’m going to tell you, now I’m telling you, this is what I told you” model. I also liked how he worked Metallica into the slides. It was a useful and informative session, well delivered.

A few points that I think may help to make the session even better. First, stop using Profiler and trace events. Extended Events are here to stay. Learn them, love them, demo with them. Practice a little more with Zoomit. You used it very well, but every once in a while it sort of surprised you. That’s just practice. Be careful about reading the slides to us, especially when you turn to look at them and read them. Doing that to emphasize a point, cool. Reading for us, not so cool.

Thanks. Great session. It showed a lot of hard work, especially the demos. I was really impressed and enjoyed the session.

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