September 25, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I was at a confrence with Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal(hope I spelled the names correctly) last week and they are truly awesome. they know so much about sql server and almost make its maintenance and administration into an art form.
One thing I noticed is the amount of system views, commands, flags etc they know off the top of thier heads. You can ask them anything and either Kimberly, Paul, or often both will know the exact dynamic view, and column name to check in order to help you out, or command or whatever.
I do a bit of admin work, and want to move into a full time admin position. One thing that I identified as a pontential weakness is that unlike Kimberly and Paul, I have to referr to BOL for most commands and correct system table names. Even doing a backup or restore outside of the standard commands results in a trip into BOL for me. I know the functionality is there, but cannot fully remember the correct spelling, syntax or something silly like that.
I dont use them enough to have them on the tip of my fingers waiting to be typed in.
As im not in a full time admin job, but want to get into one without taking a huge wage cut, is this a vital skill that i either have to pickup, or just accept the fact that a wage cut is inevitable?
September 25, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I had the same problem before. I am no where close to the way these people (Brian knight, etc.) recollect all the built-in tables/views/columns, but I set out a goal to work on it.
In my case, I set out to get certified for what I do every day. And instead of preparing the usual way (..read and read more books), I set out to write key points and key syntax's in a separate book (notes) for myself. And paid closer attention to syntax and tried to recollect syntax's every time I need to write one.
But in cases when I couldn't recollect the entire syntax, I'd first referred to my notes rather than BoL. That way I could re-fresh my visual memory of that syntax by referring to the same location I read (and reread) from, rather than a new location (like BoL).
I am not completely there yet. I cannot completely re-collect all the syntax's that I learnt (when I prepared for certifications). But I make sure I refer to my notes rather than BoL. This just reinforces/replenishes my visual memory style.
hope it helps,
_UB
Ps: BoL is easily accessable ( and indexed ) than my hand-written notes. But if I know I have it in my book, I'll open it before BoL. But any further info, BoL is the source.
September 25, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Personally, I wouldn't worry about it. The more you use it, the more ingrained it becomes.
Do you memorize all twenty styles for converting dates/times? How about the styles for converting float/real/money/smallmoney/xml/binary? Those that I regularly use, I've memorized. The others, I know where to look for them, and they are only a key press away.
IMO, as long as you can quickly get the information you need, you're fine. Just don't be surprised how, as time goes on, you don't need to look up things you did in the past.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
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