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About Me
- Name: Mitch Wheat
- Location: Perth, WA, Australia
Mitch Wheat has been working as a professional programmer since 1984, graduating with a honours degree in Mathematics from Warwick University, UK in 1986. He moved to Perth in 1995, having worked in software houses in London and Rotterdam. He has worked in the areas of mining, electronics, research, defence, financial, GIS, telecommunications, engineering, and information management. Mitch has worked mainly with Microsoft technologies (since Windows version 3.0) but has also used UNIX. He holds the following Microsoft certifications: MCPD (Web and Windows) using C# and SQL Server MCITP (Admin and Developer). His preferred development environment is C#, .Net Framework and SQL Server. Mitch has worked as an independent consultant for the last 10 years, and is currently involved with helping teams improve their Software Development Life Cycle. His areas of special interest lie in performance tuning
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Name Change
A colleague told me he thought my blog title of "Get the Bad News Early!" was too negative, and he got me thinking. Hence the name change. Whilst it's not particularly important, I've changed it.
Both are important concepts in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC):
Early Detection means cheaper to fix.
Fixing the symptoms of a problem is unproductive (though common).
Much of the evolution of the SDLC over the last 30 years has been focused on detecting problems as soon as possible.
Both are important concepts in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC):
Early Detection means cheaper to fix.
Fixing the symptoms of a problem is unproductive (though common).
Much of the evolution of the SDLC over the last 30 years has been focused on detecting problems as soon as possible.
Tough Nut to Crack
I took the live 70-441 SQL Server 2005 exam on Monday. Didn’t pass; I got exactly the same score as in the beta, despite some serious study. I’ve spoken to several people here in Australia and it seems this exam is harder than the other SQL Server 2005 certification exams. Looks like I have some more learning to do!
Whilst deep down, I value on the job experience more than a specific certification, I think going through the certification process is good because it forces you to evaluate aspects of a technology that you might have otherwise been unaware of. Even if 6 months later, you’re not an ‘expert’ and have perhaps forgotten some of the details, you are still in a better position to decide whether those features are useful in a particular scenario.
Whilst deep down, I value on the job experience more than a specific certification, I think going through the certification process is good because it forces you to evaluate aspects of a technology that you might have otherwise been unaware of. Even if 6 months later, you’re not an ‘expert’ and have perhaps forgotten some of the details, you are still in a better position to decide whether those features are useful in a particular scenario.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
User Error
Ahem! Due to user error (i.e. me) it would seem I booked the 70-441 exam for next Monday (29th May).
I've been hearing people say that this particular exam is quite strict and people have been raising their concerns of its difficulty with MS. I thought the reason they ran a beta exam program was to gather those statistics?
Anyone got any comments on 70-443? I'm intending taking this one in a week or so.
I've been hearing people say that this particular exam is quite strict and people have been raising their concerns of its difficulty with MS. I thought the reason they ran a beta exam program was to gather those statistics?
Anyone got any comments on 70-443? I'm intending taking this one in a week or so.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
One MS exam short of MCITP developer...
Spent most of the weekend so far, going over material for the Microsoft SQL 2005 developer certification 70-441, which I'll be sitting tomorrow morning. The training material for this is a bit thin on the ground still (Victor Isakov had a book coming out about now but I believe this has been delayed).
Darren Gosbell has a list of resources on his blog here.
I've taken this exam once in beta, but just missed out. Need to pass to complete my MCITP database developer, and then just one more exam 70-443 to complete the MCITP database admin.
I have to say that the more I work with SQL Server 2005, the more I love it! It really is a great product.
Darren Gosbell has a list of resources on his blog here.
I've taken this exam once in beta, but just missed out. Need to pass to complete my MCITP database developer, and then just one more exam 70-443 to complete the MCITP database admin.
I have to say that the more I work with SQL Server 2005, the more I love it! It really is a great product.
Here we go, here we go...!
OK. I finally beat the laziness, and published a blog. Whether I'll keep up the posts remains to be seen.
What's with the title? It seems a bit negative. What does it have to do with software development?
In short: Everything!
The sooner you discover a problem (or potential problem), the cheaper it will be to fix (or plan to overcome it). OK I'm probably preaching to the converted, but I needed a title!
What's with the title? It seems a bit negative. What does it have to do with software development?
In short: Everything!
The sooner you discover a problem (or potential problem), the cheaper it will be to fix (or plan to overcome it). OK I'm probably preaching to the converted, but I needed a title!
Contact
MSN, Email: mitch døt wheat at gmail.com
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