Our Database Insider Newsletter folks asked me to share some resolutions I had for 2016.
2015 was a great year for me, personally and professionally. I’m also continuously reminded of the things I don’t do so well and need to get better at.
So here goes…
- Find new ways to reach and help our users. Not everyone gets to attend a conference. Not everyone has time to read blogs. Our team wants our customers to have everything they need to do their job. Publishing more on our new GitHub project is one idea. Tell me what would help you most!
- Fall back in love with the command-line. Of course I live in a rich, graphical user interface. But the command line remains the core interface for many Oracle professionals. My favorite shell is still the Korn Shell, and I’m out of practice with SED , AWK, & GREP. Not to mention I need to dust off my SQL*Plus reporting skills to help folks with SQLcl.
- Preach more. I apologize for getting too preachy when I veer out of the technical how-to space and into philosophical world. But I need to remind folks that database security is best handled by the database, that foreign keys are the opposite of bad for performance, and that you can’t expect developers to build performant solutions without giving them access to performance diagnostic tooling.
- Stop saying ‘performant.’
- Get back to basics. Sure it’s fun to talk about the latest whiz-bang feature, but most folks are just looking to get help with the very simple or 101 type operations.
- Record more videos. Reading takes times. But everyone has two minutes to watch a video and pick up a quick tip.
A few personal items…
I’m not sure how successful setting a resolution is. For me it’s more about something ‘snapping’ mentally. You get tired of being sick and tired – I think I stole that from Dave Ramsey, although he probably stole that from someone else.
A few years ago I got sick and tired of being…big boned. I’ve done a decent job of keeping up with my fitness, but I’ve gained a stone or two over the past 2 years. So for 2016, I’m resolving to:
- drink less beer during the week
- start running again on a regular basis
- be able to hit 20 dead-hang pull-ups
- hit 160kg on my back squat
- unplug from the mobile world when it’s family time
What about you?
I was struck by a note from Connor on Twitter this morning – be happy with what you do, to paraphrase.
2016… the year to be happy and excited about what you do https://t.co/p5FmC9VAlJ
— Connor McDonald (@connor_mc_d) January 4, 2016
I run into a bunch of people that do not enjoy their work environments. So let me remind you that, you probably work in IT. It’s hard to find good people in the IT field. Oracle skills are highly sought after and highly compensated. If you don’t like your job, quit. Well, get a new job first probably. Don’t wait for opportunities. Start doing things in 2016 that will set you up for your dream job. Occupare somnium officium.
2 Comments
Love your “Get back to basics. ” It’s something I need to do as well. PL/SQL seems so, well, straightforward to me. But then I have been working with it since 1991 or so (ahem). Thanks for all your great posts and presentations, Jeff. You are making a big difference!
We need a good mix of basics to the advanced. I think the widest audience and biggest demand lies with the basics. And then the more you get them up to speed, the bigger audience we have for the advanced bits. Plus, there’s always new people coming into the fold 🙂
And thanks for the feedback mr SF!