This post will get you up to speed about the official release of dbatools 1.0. The wonderfull project of Chrissy who started a few years ago with automating some boring tasks. Now the set of commands rose to a little above 550 commands, Boy did she put in a lot of work.
At the release presentation at Datagrillen we were told that there were 163 developers active at working for this toolset. One hundred and sixty three volunteers from all over the world coming together in a community to get something done. Something wonderfull!
First experience
About a year ago i got my first taste of Powershell. I can’t remember why or how but i started out with the Microsft video of Jeffry Snover and Jason Helmick. It was fun, quite easy to follow and i found the sql server commandlets. But those commandlets were less intuitive than i hoped. So i started my own first command, Install-SqlServer. Reason being that for our training environment it would be easier to deploy sql server with scripts than a manual installer.
So i wrote this command and it worked. Proud as can be i posted it on Twitter and before i knew it, people started reacting on it. Some saying it should be in the dbatools, some finding it out of scope. Enter Chrissy. She decided it was very much in scope and offered me help and support along the way. Now, with about a week of Powerhell coding experience, i had embarked on this journey.
Trying to write serious code
I gave it my best shot and got a long way. But it was nowhere near completion and after a few months of work i had to put the work on hold. Day job, volunteer work, writing other things, some free time and having a family started biting more and more. But this project was one of the first casualties,
At some point, the community stepped up, in this case it was Kyrill Kravtsov (T) who picked up where i left off and finished the job. I can’t decide how much effort it has taken Kyrill to change my code, that was very much in scaffolding, to the finished, working commandlet that people will hopefully enjoy and use. To be honest, i think it was a lot of work.
But the fact that this whole project is open source means that the community stands together and helps out wherever possible.
Don’t give up!
Right now, i’m working on a new commandlet and i had the honour of talking with both Rob Sewell (B|T) and Shane O’Neill (B|T) about this one. They must have seen me struggling but all they did was offer help and advice. And take away pressure. My projects always have to finish yesterday because it can’t be difficult to make. But these two helped me out by removing a deadline.
My point is this. If you want to sharpen your development skills, pick up an issue in this project; dbatools or dbachecks. There are many people willing to help if you’re open to that, willing to share and in the end willing to put in your own energy.
Rewards
The reward? The best you can get, that unbeatable feeling of pride when your code gets accepted in the project and knowing it will be used by those who need it.
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