This editorial was originally published on April 17, 2008. It is being re-published as Steve is on holiday.

Be ver-wy, ver-wy kwiet, I'm hunting de-welopers.

We are deep here in the heart of the evil empire...

Actually I'm up in the Microsoft offices in Redmond, trying to learn a bit more about SQL Server from the people that build the product. I'm rather surprised to see a fairly business-like atmostphere. Everyone has an office (a few people share), doors are often closed, and people are heads down working.

They're productive, but it's boring. Sounds are muted, there's no animation from the employees, it just seems like it could be an accounting firm as much as it could be a software developer. I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe more people running around with Nerf dart guns, maybe more people excited and jazzed about what they're working on. A few loud "Yes"s or "Aha"s, following by someone outside their cube, reveling passerbys with the amazing code they're just written.

Most companies would probably just as soon have their employees with their heads down, doors closed, headphones on, writing code that they can actually use rather than dodging foam bullets. It's just a little disappointing for someone that was looking forward to a more fun, open atmosphere. I'm sure most people like having a private space, but I was imaging big bullpens where groups of developers would be pounding on keyboards, interacting and occassionally harassing each other while swigging down Mountain Dews and Rockstar energy drinks.

To be fair, the team is hard at work, getting SQL Server 2008 ready to ship this year. I'm sure we've got some news coming soon, perhaps this week at the MVP Summit. If there's anything I can release, I'll get you some notes. Being at the MVP Summit and listening to presentations from a variety of SQL Server teams, you can tell that most of these men and women enjoy what they do and they have a passion to build great software.

They're on an aggresive schedule and while I can't tell you when things are coming because of NDA, they are moving quickly.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.podshow.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

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No Podcasts today - I need a day off and got hung up at the Microsoft MVP Summit with no time to shoot anything.