Hi all,
Got back from DevTeach in Montreal this weekend, where I ran into a lot of folks, many from this site. I was really surprised to see the turnout, and the range of content was pretty diverse. I gave three sessions and managed to only annoy 1 or 2 people with my signature oddness. I'm not faking people, that's me when I talk. I highly recommend attending next year's conference - it will be worth it.
One reason I really enjoy speaking at conferences is the interaction *after* my sessions and the questions that follow. I don't know everything. No one does. It's amazing how many things I learn or perspectives I gain each time I attend an event like this.
DevTeach was particularly interesting was running into a friend I hadn't seen since college, who is clearly on the development side of the "fence" (note: one of my goals in life is to tear down that and other "fences"). In casual conversation with him, he said things like "why bother with stored procedures anyway, parameterized queries are just as efficient" or the dreaded "it's only a database after all". Being a friend, I refrained from punching him in the nose. Instead, we had a real, head-to-head discussion. It became clear (to me at least), that the larger problem is that one "side" doesn't seem to understand the other. He had good points. So did I. I walked away from the conversation thinking "hmmm", and I hope he did too.
One topic I'll tackle this week is how Agile development fits in (or doesn't) with the SQL world. Others I have on tap:
- CTEs (and why doesn't anyone use them)
- Snapshot Isolation (Hey Tempdb - duck!)
- Implicit Data Type Conversion (grrrr...)
- The Null use of Null (there's a joke there - get it?)
And more...
One last thanks to Peter and Adam for giving me a home :)