Sources of Inspiration

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Sources of Inspiration

Grant Fritchey

SSC Guru

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March 11, 2023 at 12:39 am

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"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
September 11, 2023 at 9:01 pm

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004406 More actions · Answer 1

Howdy, Grant...

A lot of people won't be able to figure out how to get to this good article to read it because it's missing the clickable title. The icon to the left DOES work and that's how I got to it. 😀

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Homer Roderick Newbie Points: 1 More actions · Answer 2

We all need to be inspired by Chat-GPT

It is a game changer and if you don't learn the game then you lose the game.

skeleton567 SSCertifiable Points: 5875 More actions · Answer 3

I've been reflecting on this article while enjoying my morning coffee, and conclude that my inspiration comes from trying to understand cause and effect and perspective. Maybe this is why I have loved technology and making information from data which in turn adds to our interpretation and more undertanding.

My interests over the years have include such cause and result things such as my ancestry from eastern Europe in the 14th century and western Europe in the 15th century and the more than 2500 pages of data that document that. Then my studies in psychology and sociology contribute to an understanding of those aspects of our history and how it all contributes to our lives.

Then my introduction to technology in the 1960's added the perspective that everything we do and think and feel all pretty much boils down to the interaction of protrons, neutrons, and electrons. We are all inspired, positively or negatively, (pardon the pun) by trying to understand the interactions of science and history.

When we begin to create technological things we develop an understanding of the perspective of things and how they relate. Back when I first began to write code we used flowcharts of processes and printouts of the logic that we would page through backward and forward through 70/80/90 pages of the old 11x14 paper to understand cause/effect in our logic.

I recall the old Pete Seeger song called 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' which says 'To everything there is a season', and I would parphrase that as 'To everything there is a REASON' also. Trying to figure all this out is my inspiration.

This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by skeleton567.

Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )

mschluper Grasshopper Points: 19 More actions · Answer 4

Meeting customers' needs.

That's all I want.

Any technology push stinks. And resume building is detestable.

We are here to serve. If we can't relate our activities to a specific customer problem it solves, we have gone astray.

Therefore, what inspires me is knowing the customers' needs and meeting those needs.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004406 More actions · Answer 5

Homer Roderick wrote:

We all need to be inspired by Chat-GPT
It is a game changer and if you don't learn the game then you lose the game.

Heh.. Ok... So, you're satisfied with average answers derived from an internet driven artificial "intelligence" where the average person's knowledge (even amongst supposed "experts") about databases sets a really low bar and Chat-GPT presents those answers as sometimes outright incorrect code and frequently resource intensive, low-performance code and it does so in a a confident sounding manner complete with a detailed (but sometimes incorrect) message about how the code works that will lead many people astray even when given "amplifying requirements" to meet?

Yeah... that's going to be a "game changer" alright. To quote "Joshua" from the the old "War Games" movie, perhaps "The only winning move is not to play".

Remember... the "A" in "AI" stands for "Artificial"... not "Actual" (unless you consider the low knowledge source it gets it's info from) and that's the understanding of this "game" that really needs to be learned.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004406 More actions · Answer 6

mschluper wrote:

Meeting customers' needs. That's all I want.
Any technology push stinks. And resume building is detestable.
We are here to serve. If we can't relate our activities to a specific customer problem it solves, we have gone astray.
Therefore, what inspires me is knowing the customers' needs and meeting those needs.

You're definitely a "Brother from another Mother". I agree and could'na put it better myself.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Rod at work SSC-Dedicated Points: 34017 More actions · Answer 7

Oh, WOW! Excellent question, Grant. Off the top of my head, I can only give one or two reasons which cause me inspiration. The first one is podcasts. I subscribe to several tech podcasts. I'll hear about something new (to me) and then investigate it.

The second inspiring thing that comes to mine is going to conferences or attending them virtually. This was much more prevalent for me in the past in my previous job. In my previous job we were all allowed to attend one conference a year (budget permitting). In my current position no one has gone to conferences in at least 30 years (with just one exception, when I went to a conference in November 2019). Unfortunately, keeping staff up to date isn't a priority for the management I work for, so consequently not much inspiration is occurring from conference attendance.

Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398909 More actions · Answer 8

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Great stuff. And there should be a title now. I spotted that on Saturday and added it.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

JJ B SSCertifiable Points: 5130 More actions · Answer 9

I'm passionate about minimizing suffering, everything from making work life enjoyable to preserving life on this planet. So, things that inspire me are ideas and situations which contribute to this passion of minimizing suffering.

On a professional front, as others have said, I'm inspired by anything that helps me to help my users. When users have to use bad software, it really does cause unnecessary suffering. On the other hand, giving users good software makes them happy. Software makes employees happy when it meets their actual business needs and helps them become more efficient so that they can spend time doing the parts of their job that they really want to be doing. So, I feel inspired when I learn or discover techniques that help me understand the business needs better and how to make more efficient queries, etc. When your users are literally buying you gift cards for chocolate and giving you hugs, you know you have made the world a better place. 🙂

I'm also inspired by ideas that help me to communicate and teach better. It's terribly painful to sit through a bad training, and as part of my job, I not only get to create databases and the applications which use those databases, I also get to train our staff on how to use the software. I want staff to look forward to my trainings, which is one component of helping staff learn better--which minimizes suffering.

Here's one Training Tip/Example: treats for participation works well when a training is in person. Think: positive reinforcement that we use to train non-human animals. Works great on humans too... I bring that example up, because it is an example of how I was inspired by something completely outside of the SQL Server and software development world. It totally works too. Most staff LOVED the treats for answering questions and asking questions and even for nodding their heads to show me they were with me (while I was giving in-person trainings). I use other techniques for giving effective trainings too, and I still hear from managers how it makes their staff happy when I'm coming to a meeting (now via zoom) to present something. Every time I take a training, in addition to trying to absorb the content, I also look at the way the training is given to get ideas/inspiration.

We can't fix the world by ourselves, but we can try. And by trying, we do our best to make our own little corner of the world better. That very idea inspires me and helps me make decisions all the time, both personally and professionally.

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398909 More actions · Answer 10

There's some great stuff. Thanks for sharing.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

m60freeman SSC-Addicted Points: 467 More actions · Answer 11

I get inspired by blog posts (including yours!) that either present me with a solution to a problem I may not have realized I have, give me a new way of looking at something I thought I already knew, or make me think of ways to extend the presented code to add more value. Having newsletters like the one from SQL Server Central that aggregate interesting blog posts helps me find new topics and new blogs to follow.

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398909 More actions · Answer 12

Thanks! Glad to hear it.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004406 More actions · Answer 13

Just remember... your favorite bloggers may not actually be correct. 😉

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)