A brief history

Just to add a bit of weight, credibility, whatever, to my blog, here is a complete dump of how I started my life in IT.

1987 – 1994

I started my IT career as a junior programmer in 1987 at the ripe old age of 16. During this introduction to what I now consider to be “my life”, I developed applications in the PICK environment. For those of you not familiar with PICK, it was an Operating System (OS), a DataBase Management System (DBMS) and a programming language which could be installed on both Intel and “proper” servers i.e. IBM RS6000. If it’s still in existence I’ll post a link somewhere. Because it was such a small firm (3 people) we had to procure the hardware, partition the disks, install the OS etc., make the cables (RS232 anyone???), develop the applications, deploy the whole infrastructure on site (including drilling holes through walls and feeding cables through ducts/trunks), train the staff and do the live support. Yes, they were indeed very busy times but this was, without any shadow of doubt, the very best introduction to IT anyone could ever want.

1994 – 1999

I switched technologies along the way and went from using PICK to coding applications using Uniface, this switch coincided with a change in jobs. I started working for a decent sized software house and this switch turned out to be the making of me. I travelled the world on the back of this job and because it was a VERY client-facing role I quickly grew the hide of a rhino. I no longer cried into my keyboard when someone had a dig at my code.

1999 – 2004

After quite stint of working in the hospitality and health care arenas I went to work for the company that created Uniface. I utilised my rhino hide to great effect in my new role as a consultant. I worked side-by-side with my customers, I took their comments onboard, I smiled when I needed to smile and I empathised with them. I felt their pain. I was a proper consultant.

Again I coded pretty hard in this role, I learned stacks of stuff about OO programming, about abstraction, inheritence, polymorphism, proper coding for a change. Well, I was using a bit of Java so all of the above was quite important and when I switched back to Uniface I learned to code so that all objects were reusable, that there was a difference between the application and the business layers.

So we’re getting pretty close to where I am today.

2004 – present day

I took a strategic position with a major high-street bank because I wanted to be a DBA and within a year I got my big break. I started off down the Oracle path and got as far as obtaining OCA accreditation in Oracle 9i before switching sides and getting onboard with Microsoft SQL Server. I already had experience with versions 6.5, 7 and 2000 so it wasn’t completely alien but it was an incredible learning curve. Nothing pleases me more these days than getting under the hood of SQL Server, whether it’s a complete “ground-up” cluster build with full DR capabilities or a poorly production system that needs some attention. I still have so much to learn about the product and the aim of this blog is two-fold: 1) to document that what I have learned so I don’t have to rely on tatty notebooks and 2) document issues and fixes because I know just how frustrating it can be when things just don’t work as they should.

Please feel free to make comment on any posts, ask questions or simply say hello, it’s always nice to hear from fellow professionals.

Enjoy.

PD