Pardon, the "mess" and the lack of content. First thing is not easily addressed (by me anyway), but second is work in progress. I have never been a very graphical person and always enjoyed writing code more than designing the interface. With that said, the purpose of this blog is to deliver content related to .NET Programming, MS SQL Server and events related to those topics. If someone has good suggestions to improve overall presentation and design, please leave comments, I welcome constructive feedback.
Now a little bit about me. I was born and raised in Siberia, the place is as cold as people think it is. But what most don’t realize that because it is so vast it there many different climates inside of Siberia and some places can get hot. For example, part of my life I lived in Kyzyl. It is a city in the central part of Siberia close to Mongolia. In the winter temperature could drop to below negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but in the summer it climbs to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, that is enough of the geography lesson.
Onto a more relevant subject of computers. My passion for computers started when I saw my first computer at the age of 6. It was TOSHIBA notebook, a few years later we got 386 with huge 120 MB hard drive, which meant I could have as many games as I wanted. When I was growing up, operating systems, video games and just about everything else related to computers was in English. Therefore I decided to select it as my second language in school.
In 7th grade, I got took my first programming class in Logo aka Turtle. For those who are old enough, you might have actually heard of it. For the rest of us, there is Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language). At the same time, my older sister was working on her Bachelor degree in programming. The language of choice in University at the time was Turbo Paschal. Being lazy (which can be the best quality of a programmer) I saw the tremendous potential of programming. I realized that just by writing less than 30 lines of code I can plug in numbers from my Algebra homework and get answers. I’m not sure if it was at that point that I decided to be a programmer or it was hundreds of hours spend playing DOS games.
In 1998 my family moved to the United States, and I got to finish high school which meant learn English all over again and get to have a regular teenage life. In high school, I took C++ and also got into writing utility apps for my TI-83 to assist with my Calculus homework. My associate degree has consisted mostly of VB 6.0 and MS Access. During Bachelor degree, I focused on C# and some SQL Server database development.
Most of my SQL knowledge came from on the job training, MSDN articles, StackOverflow, blogs and SQL Saturday. I cannot express enough my fascination with SQL Saturday events. Being completely free event, the expertise of speakers never ceases to amaze me. I have to thank SQL Saturday’s events for my current job of Senior Software Developer at Civica CMI.
For those who are not familiar with SQL Saturday events. "PASS SQLSaturdays are free 1-day training events for SQL Server professionals that focus on local speakers, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, and making it all happen through the efforts of volunteers. Whether you're attending an SQLSaturday or thinking about hosting your own, we think you'll find it's an excellent way to spend a Saturday – or any day.(http://www.sqlsaturday.com/)" The first session I have attended was “10 things every developer should know” by Kevin Kline. Having already been working with SQL Server for several years I could not believe that there were many things that I still did not know. Attending events and staying for after party I have learned and improved in my knowledge of SQL Server and met many people in SQL community who are now part of my #sqlfamily.
Thanks for visiting and reading my blog.
Vladimir Oselsky (aka Vlady)
