Never Say Never

After years of hearing great things about the blogging community and reading many blogs written by others, I finally decided I’d attempt to participate myself.  So, here we are, my first blog post.  I don’t know what is typical here  (I’ll admit that I haven’t done an awful lot of research on the topic of first posts), but I figure I’ll start by introducing myself and my plans for this blog (which apparently involves bullet points pretending to be sentences).  I’m a SQL Server developer.  T-SQL is my native language.  I work as Developer in Melbourne, Fl and am involved in the Space Coast and (occasionally) Orlando SQL Server User Groups.  I’m a very regular poster on SQLServerCentral.com and am attempting to be more active in the SQL community.  This blog is a step in that direction.

My focus for this blog will be mostly technical, and the topics will likely focus primarily on query writing, TSQL Techniques and performance tuning.  Not every post will be full of technical information, but I will try to keep them all related to SQL Server/Development in some way.  In other words, I don’t expect to ever write about things like Politics, Sports or ‘I really like fruit loops and this is why I like fruit loops’.  Don’t get me wrong, I really do like fruit loops, and someone out there might even care to hear about why, but if I ever get an overwhelming desire to discuss my favorite breakfast cereals, I’ll make another blog to do it in.

Almost all of my ‘on the job’ experience has been with SQL 2000, and as someone who constantly has to research the “old way” of doing things, I’ll definitely try to touch on several of those topics.  I expect to start out a bit fluffy (ie. this entire post) until I get the hang of this whole blogging thing, but hopefully with a bit of practice I’ll be able to contribute some valuable technical blogs to the community.  As far as Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced topics, I’ll likely touch on all of them.

Why “Never Say Never”?

Mostly… because Andy Warren already took It Depends.  Beyond that, this phrase is very applicable to T-SQL and development in general.  There are very few absolutes in this business, whether it’s the “best” (or worst) way to do something or statements such as “We will never use ___ in that way” or “We will never ___”.  In almost every case, you’ll find that the former requires qualification and the latter was simply untrue.  Also, despite the name, I’m sure I will, at some point, use the word ‘never’ in a post.  Sorry, but it’s gonna happen.  It’s more of a general guideline than a rule anyways.   I was trying to to decide whether that was more or less in keeping with the title, but it just made my head hurt.