Mitch Wheat - Treat the cause, not the symptoms!

I blogged about this free resource last year. If you haven't given it a look yet, it's really worthwhile. I don't hold too many political views, but free access to higher education for all and not just those that can afford it, is certainly one of them. MIT OpenCourseware is helping make that a reality.

Volunteer moderators and contributors who support the Microsoft MSDN SQL Server Forums have started a Wiki with Solutions for Common T-SQL Problems over at the MSDN Code Gallery. Could turn out to be a great resource.

I do not like to use my blog as a soapbox to vent my frustrations or to blog personal trivia, nor do I do it often, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to indulge me with the right to reply to something that occurred very recently, because the person involved has told me that he has blocked my emails.

I recently sent Brian Madsen, in his role as organiser and self-confessed Chief Zealot of www.CSharpZealot.com, an email asking him not to on-post the announcements I send out for the Perth .NET user group to CSharpZealots ‘Perth Events’ feed. He immediately dashed off a blog post (http://msmvps.com/blogs/brianmadsen/archive/2008/04/27/apologies-to-the-perth-net-user-group.aspx), in which he misstates what I had written. I have given him the opportunity to amend his post, but he has declined. So, I would like to try and set the record straight.

Here is the original email I sent to Brian, in full and unaltered:

Brian

Can you please stop on-posting the Perth .NET Community of Practice user group announcements that I send out, to CSharpZealot ‘Perth events’.

While I can appreciate your enthusiasm for C#, as you know the Perth .NET Community of Practice user group caters for both C# and VB.NET developers (and other CLR supported languages), i.e we are NOT C# zealots. The notion of C# zealotism is neither helpful nor representative, and could deter some people from attending meetings.

Thanks,
Mitch

I’m not going to take his blog post apart line by line, but if you read it he talks about misrepresentation. Brian, unrepresentative does not mean misrepresented. He also implies that I asked him personally not to blog about events. This is also untrue. He gave me his permission (as copyright owner) to publish his subsequent emails to me, but I do not feel that would be productive or in anyone's best interests to do so.

Brian seems to have taken this as some sort of personal attack, which it is not. I have made my opinion on language fanaticism clear to Brian and others on several occasions. When he set up CSharpZealot I made it clear to him that I thought such a site to be counterproductive and unrepresentative of the wider community (despite my own preference for coding in C#) and I believe that has been borne out, judging by the low number of posts to the site’s forums.

Perhaps I have underestimated people, who are mature enough to realise that the User Group does cater to C# and VB.NET and any other .NET languages (we would be particularly interested in a presentation on a non-mainstream .NET language by the way!)

So what was the reason I sent the original email above? Since I took on the role as coordinator of the Perth .NET user group, I have tried to raise awareness of what it has to offer both to members and employers. I have had conversations with a handful of people in recent months where their impression of the user group was that it was not that useful to encourage staff to attend because it was to some extent “propeller heads” and “language fanatics”, and did not offer much value, which is simply not true. I am doing my best to help change that impression: It's a great time to belong to a Usergroup. I have learnt many things at user group presentations that have helped me in my day to day work, and hope to learn many more.

I would like to apologise to Brian; I’m sorry the request caused you so much angst. But I stick by my belief that encouraging the idea that one .NET language is 'better' than another is not particularly useful. It’s horses for courses. C++0X anyone?!?

If you have any sort of interest in algorithms you'll be familiar with Donald Knuth's work. InformIT have published a recent interview with him here.

I hasten to add that this has not happened to me (so far), but I wanted to record for future reference. Raul Garcia's blog post Disaster Recovery: What to do when the SA account password is lost in SQL Server 2005 lists a step by step procedure for disaster recovery in such a situation.(Note: Raul's blog has moved to the SQL Server Security blog).

Join us at the Perth .NET Community of Practice, May 8th to hear Dr Greg Low talk about occasionally connected systems using SQL Server Compact and Express editions. These two editions of SQL Server are of great interest to developers. In this session Greg will cover the appropriate uses of each edition and describe the benefits and limitations of each in some detail. He will focus on building and deploying applications with each edition.

TOPIC: Occasionally Connected Systems with Greg Low
DATE: Thursday May 8th, 5:30pm
VENUE: Excom, Level 2, 23 Barrack Street, Perth
COST: Free. All welcome.

Please Note: this session is a week later than our usual first Thursday of the month slot.

Greg Low is an internationally recognised consultant, developer and trainer. He has been working in development since 1978, holds a PhD in Computer Science and a host of Microsoft certifications. Greg is the country lead for Solid Quality, a SQL Server MVP and one of only three Microsoft MSDN Regional Directors for Australia. Greg also hosts the SQL Down Under podcast (www.sqldownunder.com), organises the SQL Down Under Code Camp and co-organises CodeCampOz.

Greg will also be presenting at the SQL Server user group on Weds, 7th May at Change Corporation's offices on one of my current favourite topics: dynamic management views and custom reports.

I'm organising going out for dinner after Thursday's talk. If you would like to come along, please RSVP to me by email, otherwise I can not guarantee you a place.

I've recently been investigating the applicability of SQL Server Database Snapshots (Enterprise Edition-only) for reporting scenarios and came across this excellent Simple-Talk article describing pros and cons: A DBA's view on SQL 2005 Database Snapshots.

If you're in the city this Wednesday evening (23rd April), Alistair Cockburn has agreed to an informal meeting at the pub. So if you're interested in meeting him, pop along to the Moon & Sixpence, 5:30pm.

Frank Arrigo has a post over at his blog, Did someone mention Win2K??, where he admits surprise that more than 50% of his readers are still running XP. There’s probably a good reason for that, Frank! [On the subject of Vista, what maniacs dreamt up that awful bloody Vista retail box? The one that required extra sticky-tape additions to give clues how to open it!]

Don’t get me wrong. Microsoft has significantly changed the software development landscape (among other things), and will continue to do so. I just feel they are not achieving their full potential.

Since I’ve taken the Apple plunge, I think I might buy a MacBook Air next (although I really would like that Intel Quad core)!! I feel sorry for those Microsofties, who secretly want to buy an iPhone! ;)

# posted by Mitch Wheat @ 6:49 pm 0 comments

April’s .NET user group meeting, ‘Delivering on the Promise of SOA’ with Bill Poole, was another success with a great turnout (49 people).