Dan Wolchonok

I saw this excerpt from an announcement about the next version of Visual Studio.  I think that if Microsoft really interested in going after the agile developer, then it makes sense to blend the role of the traditional DBA and web engineer.  In a lot of the cases I’ve been exposed to (at PwC and in personal projects), there is usually one person where the tools have been designed for two different people.  Here’s the excerpt of Microsoft’s strategy to bring them together:

Merging of Developer, DBA Roles

Most of these changes are a ways off, though you can expect to see some of this functionality demonstrated at the upcoming Microsoft Professional Developers’ Conference. One item, however, takes effect immediately.

As Microsoft sees it, the roles of the database-centric developer and “regular” developer are less distinct than they once were, so the company is merging its VSTS database and development products. As of October 1, those who belong to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and currently own Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition or Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition will receive for free the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition, Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition, Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Software Developers and Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Database Professionals.

As someone who used the Team Suite tools for “Software Developers” and “Database Professionals”, I think it makes sense, as I constantly had to take one hat off when playing the other.  I think it’ll make it easier for developers to use one toolset, which is more and more common nowadays when developing simple CMS or CRUD type web sites.

My friends and I always joke that we’re entering our “Senior Year of Life”.  As with many people my age, we count years based off of when we graduated from college.  Starting in June 2005, my first year out from college, I was a freshman in terms of real world experience.  It has been 3 years since graduating from Tufts, therefore I am entering my fourth year, or my senior year of life.

What an exciting start to the year it has been, indeed!  Check out what has happened and what else is planned:

• I moved from outside Central Square to Harvard Square.
• I left PwC to become a software engineer at FAST.
• I bought a car to get myself to my new job (as of this post yet to happen).
• I turned 25 and had a quarter life crisis (my birthday is September 25th).  I am not ruling out the possibility of getting a really expensive sports car to satisfy the quarter life crisis.

I’m excited about all of these changes.  My senior year looks pretty exciting, indeed.