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Jason Hammer's Blog About All Things SQL

Wherein I pass on the knowledge, standing on the shoulders of SQL giants
All I Really Need To Know About SQL Server I Learned From D&D

Gary Gygax passed away today, and I am reminded of something I said a few years ago. Playing Dungeons & Dragons inspired me to become a database developer, not even playing really. Actually, my favorite parts of the game were setting up a new campaign, working with the lists and categorizing monsters, crunching the performance statistics of different equipment, and setting up the random characteristics of a new warrior. By the time I had a game ready, I wanted to skip the actual playing and build another. (I still played of course: I wasn't completely devoid of all social interaction.)

But my fascination with all of this is really the first time I realized I love playing with data. Today, I love modeling the data into tables and their relationships, mining the data, and developing the processes that affect that data. These things are still as fun and exciting to me today as rolling that 20-sided die on the playground table behind the school building, lo those many years ago. So in honor of Mr.Gygax, I give my thanks for that early inspiration.

What inspired you to be in the field you are today?

Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 3:15 PM by jason

Comments

jeffr said:

Dad spent a lot of his time building early computers and selling software.  I guess in my little kid brain it seemed that something that my dad spent so much time doing must be pretty important.  At some point coding was just the thing that was the easiest way for me to make money, and I'm basically a lazy person, so it wasn't like I was going to bother learning to do something else...

# March 5, 2008 8:01 AM
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