Guard rail along side empty road and green fields.

That Diversity, Continued

By Riley Major, 2018-09-12

Clark Sell opened That Conference up this year with a video about community, reminding us that they didn’t set out to be event organizers but rather to help bring us together. For them, these three days at a water park are just the spark to ignite year-round engagement with our fellow technologists. That’s what sets this event apart for me– its inspirational and encouraging vibe. Continue reading

Tic-Tac-Toe in Fence Shadow

Tic-Tac-Two

By Riley Major, 2018-08-08 | Tic-Tac-Toe Series Part 1 / Part 2 (this article)

If a pile of matchboxes can learn to play Tic-Tac-Toe, then certainly I should be able to code a solution. With my predilection for databases, T-SQL was my tool of choice. But first, I needed to model the game with some sort of data structure. Unfortunately, as I learned, it’s not as simple as mapping some X and O values to a grid.

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Tic Tac Toe Sticky Notes

Tic-Tac-T-SQL

By Riley Major, 2018-05-18 | Tic-Tac-Toe Series Part 1 (this article) / Part 2

Known as Noughts and Crosses across the pond, Tic-Tac-Toe is considered a “solved game“– meaning we can predict the outcome of the game assuming perfect play. In fact, Wikipedia says “it is straightforward to write a computer program to play tic-tac-toe perfectly“. Well then as a programmer, I ought to be able to do it.

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T-SQL Tuesday #102 Wrap-Up

T-SQL Tuesday Logo

By Riley Major, 2018-05-15.

Last week I asked the Microsoft data professional community to give back… and you did. We generated 29 blog articles with inspiring stories of past contributions, advice to those beginning their journey, and plans to do more. A recurring theme was how helping others ultimately helps you– with both personal growth and professional recognition. My overarching goal was to get more people doing more things for the community. I hope the tales and goals shared this month provide the motivation for more action and continued growth of our community. Continue reading