How I Spent My COVID Vacation

I haven’t blogged in, what, ...forever. A couple of years.

I have been writing, though. Just not here. A lot, actually. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve done during my lapse here:

• 2020-01-28 – “Solving the unsolvable performance problem” (2 pages)
• 2020-02-14 – “Method R Workbench: the pesky, intermittent performance problem” (video 4:57) 
• 2020-03-11 – “Preventing the post-production performance problem” (2 pages)
• 2020-04-23 – “Better testing, better risk reduction” (2 pages)
• 2020-05-07 – “Some things you probably didn’t know about tracing (Dallas edition)” (video 1:03:27)
• 2020-06-10 – “Death to the health check… Long live the health check” (2 pages)
• 2020-07-01 – Method R Workbench 9.0, a huge new release of my company’s flagship software system. Since 2001, this software has grown from a tkprof replacement to a system for mining and managing 10,000s of trace files at once.
• 2020-07-01 – “Method R Workbench 9: a whole new way to see Oracle performance” (video 5:36)
• 2020-08-26 – “Some things you probably didn’t know about tracing (Chicago edition)” (video 1:07:34)
• 2021-01-19 – CMG IMPACT 2021 “Three tricky performance problems solved with Oracle trace data” (ad video 6:12)
• 2021-08-09 – Method R Trace 21.2, a re-imagining of our trace file collector extension for Oracle SQL Developer.
• 2021-08-11 – “Method R Workbench video tips” (8 videos, each 2:21 or less)

But the biggest reason of all: I’ve spent every spare moment outside of my work obligations since March 2020…

 …writing a new book. 

The working title is How to Make Things Faster. It’s a book about making things (including software) go faster, for readers who aren’t necessarily technical. It will be about the size of a Dilbert book and contain pretty much everything I’ve ever learned in 30 years of work, both technical and political. The audience I’m aiming for is every IT professional, business leader, and consultant on Earth. I hope you’ll be able to find it in airport book stores next to Liz Wiseman and Dr. Phil.

The book is story-driven. You’ll get a fun story or two and then half a dozen bite-sized (~2½-page) chapters teaching lessons inspired by the stories, then a new story and more bite-sized lessons. I think that people will be able to enjoy reading the book both serially from front to back, and randomly two or three short chapters at a time.  

To ensure that the material would be accessible to non-technical readers, I hired a very special first reviewer for this project: my mom. My instructions to her were to identify anything that was either unclear or boring. Thanks to her help, other reviewers so far have characterized the book as “fun,” “lively,” “quick,” and “important.”

It’s been a lot of work, and there’s still a lot to do. I’m excited about it, and I hope you’ll be, too. I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.

If you want a peek, you should join me next Thursday, October 7 at the Dallas Oracle Users Group’s “DOUG Training Day 2021,” which will convene live (!) in Grapevine, Texas, not too far from where I’m sitting right now. This will be an important event for me: it’ll be the first time I’ll have presented face-to-face with a live audience in nearly two years, and it’ll be the first time I’ll have presented material from the book. Plus, it’s a keynote for the event, so …the pressure’s on. :-)

If you’re interested in the sound of the material, please consider booking me for a workshop.