During my time there I was mentored by a team of DBAs working with Oracle 8i. They were working on a sighting database as part of a government initiative for the protection of endangered wildlife. It was my first exposure to an “industrial-grade” DBMS, and the enthusiasm those guys had for their craft left an impression that would set the tone for the next decade of my career.

After a couple of years of consulting work, I changed to a more permanent team role within a retail finance company and moved away from Oracle to the Microsoft toolstack. Moving to SQL Server 2000 was something of a revelation: I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, databases can be friendly?”. I was particularly taken with DTS and how readily large amounts of data could be shuffled around from server-to-server. Enterprise Manager and its point-and-click query and table designers unleashed all sorts of possibilities for me. In time, however, I would learn that these GUI tools could also be dangerous if not applied with proper forethought and due care.

I have to admit that the whole RDBMS paradigm didn’t come that easily to me. Initially I saw it simply as a way to persist my application object data; something I later learned was quite common among AppDevs (Grant Frichey summed up this quandary well in his article on DBA/Developer communication). But in time I came to appreciate the subtleties of working with relational databases and got to grips with deployment techniques, like how to preserve the integrity of a schema during table object changes.

As our team started to face the pressures of shorter release cycles, and as tensions between Devs and DBAs became evermore frayed, I saw a need for a role that would keep the wheels of our application lifecycle turning. So for 3 years I did nothing but prepare and execute releases to our enterprise contact centre systems, working with both teams to find ways to make our deployments go a little smoother and a little faster each time. I discovered the wonders of Continuous Integration with TeamCity, integrating our build process with a Compare API, which helped us with our deployments as well as keep our environments in-sync. My manager helped me put a DevOps team together and over time we got deployments down to a fine art, making the best of our ever-narrowing release windows.

I enjoyed this work so much I recently quit my job to develop and market a tool for database professionals. So in a way my career has come full circle with a return to independent software development. The difference to when I started out 15 years ago is that the vernacular has now changed from “shareware developer” to “Micro-ISV”. Times may have changed and certainly the tools for software development and deployment have come a long way, but in a lot of ways database development tools are still stuck in the dark ages. Having worked on both sides of the Dev and DBA divide, I have been fortunate to gain an interesting perspective on the challenges faced with software delivery and operations.

So the gauntlet that I’ve now thrown down for myself is to make the best of that opportunity: to help teams work more harmoniously and simply get more releases out the door.

I am very excited to announce that ReadyRoll — the flagship product of my new startup of the same name — has today graduated to Version 1.0!

Working on this product has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my career. Of course this is just the initial release; there’s a barrel of items in the backlog that I’ll be focusing on next, particularly in the areas of usability and performance.

When I first started working on ReadyRoll, one of my goals was to help bridge the growing divide between Developers (responsible for building databases to meet the needs of the business) and Database Administrators (the custodians of an organisation’s data, aka the people who get the 3AM wakeup calls).

As a former DevOps guy, I have had the opportunity to work with both Developers and DBAs, and it’s my hope that I can provide them with a tool that helps solve a problem they share: bearing in mind the subtleties of working with schemas, how can an organisation achieve a repeatable and reliable database deployment process?

So without any further ado, it’s time to get rolling!

Review of 7th Guest for iPad – 18th December 2010

In the summer of 1993 I received a copy of the 7th Guest as a present from my parents, and immediately I was enthralled. The first thing I noticed when opening the box was the stunning artwork, featuring the mansion of toymaker Henry Stauf, exquisitely architected by Robert Stein and his team.

In the box was a host of treats, including a stunning lithograph featuring one of Stauf’s enigmatic dolls. Behind that the two CD-ROMs containing the hours of live-action video, gameplay and 3D Studio-rendered graphics, with the remainder dedicated to the game’s haunting CD-audio soundtrack. And finally, nestled behind a small doorway was a “making of” video cassette which offered a detailed insight into how all the diverse elements of the 7th Guest came together. Later versions also shipped with a booklet entitled The Stauf Files which provided a new story arc featuring the investigative journalist Robin Morales. This also acted as a nice segue into the game’s sequel, The 11th Hour.

As a 13 year old kid, it was like having Christmas all in one beautifully packaged box. I can’t tell you how many countless hours I spent on my dad’s PC in the study, exploring all the rooms of Stauf’s sprawling mansion, looking for so-called “kinetic hotspots” like the hidden portal to the subterranean portrait gallery, screaming blue murder over the infuriatingly difficult Microscope puzzle (Note: this had to be dropped for the iOS version due to technical issues) and piecing together the (intentionally) fragmented storyline of what took place when 6 guests were invited one night.

In the near two decades since its release, there have been multiple ports of the game, including one to the long-forgotten CD-i platform. The latest and first one in 13 years is to the iOS platform, with both iPhone and iPad flavours being made available.

In firing up this game for the first time in years, the first thing I realise is how far the gaming platforms themselves have come. It’s easy to take this for granted in the age of the smartphone and the PS3, but I can still clearly recall the difficulty in setting up the game back in the 90′s: Correct VESA/SoundBlaster  drivers? — check, MIDI/WAV volume balance — check, enough available Conventional/Extended memory — check. Indeed, the first puzzle of the game could be described as actually getting it up-and-running (later releases of the game did improve on this, thankfully). But it was all worth it as the game’s ouija board was revealed and that delectably evil voice of Henry Stauf offered that unnerving greeting: “Welcome to my… house.”

Players of the PC/Mac version will notice how true to the original the iOS port is. Thankfully, the clever team that has brought this version to us (under the direction of the game’s co-creator, Rob Landeros) has left the game for the vast majority intact, avoiding any George Lucas-style tinkering of its parts. One thing I did miss, however, was the game’s cinematic title sequence, which featured a bone-chilling crescendo provided by the musical genius George Sanger, aka The Fat Man. This introduction, which lead into the haunting exposition of Stauf’s “road to evil” (which is included in the iOS version), set the tone and atmosphere for the game in a way that had me checking my back as I explored the house’s darkened corridors. I distinctly remember at one time being a little freaked out having got lost in the vast maze that leads to the house’s crypt: as I rounded a corner and was met with a dead-end, Stauf offered his most chilling taunt of all, “Feeling lonely?”.

Now as I fire up the ouija board on my iPad and that skeletal hand beckons me deeper into the bowels of the mansion once more I can’t help but feel a certain sense of trepidation all over again: will I beat the house in the face of Stauf’s merciless taunts and “live to play another day”, or will I once more fall victim to the house having succumbed to my “mere mortal” weaknesses?

Either way I’m sure I’ll be reminded why this game made a such a big impact when it was released all those years ago: it’s straight-forward and intuitive gameplay, it’s uncompromising production values but most of all it’s focus on storytelling, which was way ahead of its time (my favourite of the camp cast of characters being the man-eating seductress, Martine Burden). As this latest incarnation spreads throughout the Internet, I will follow with great interest the thoughts and reactions of a whole new generation of Egos who dare to enter the mansion.

My commitment was to free up my time so I could ready v1.0 of my new product for launch.

Realising this was going to be near impossible while still in fulltime employment, I decided that I would hand in my resignation upon returning to Sydney. And now, after an incredible 7 year run working with some of the most talented and generous people I’ve ever met, my time with FlexiGroup Ltd will today come to an end.

During those 7 years, I’ve worked as a Developer, shifted into a Release Engineering role and finally onto leadership of the DevOps Team.

However during the last few months, my thoughts and energies have progressively drifted towards my startup. Developing ‘ReadyRoll‘ has occupied nearly all of my time outside work for the better part of the last year but I’ve found it incredibly enjoyable. Corporate work usually involves balancing a number of different workloads, so being able to lavish the design of a singular piece of software is something of a luxury.

ReadyRoll will be the my first product since ‘StyleMaker’, a CSS authoring tool that I created way back in 1997 as a teen. It was something I made for a school assignment, but it ended up being more than that when I decided to distribute it as shareware. I can still remember the rush of my first few sales and seeing my software on the front page of sites like TUCOWS and Download.com.

Though I did manage to achieve “ramen profitability“, it didn’t work out in the end but I learnt a lot about things like how much hard graft and perseverance actually goes into creating things of real value. And how listening to customers and being open and honest in your dealings is key to long-term prosperity in business (thanks to Jason Cohen for reminding me of this). Failure to deliver on these things can be a great teacher.

So in a way this move is a continuation of my “geek origin” story. In the years since my early efforts, I’ve been blessed to have had the opportunity to hone my skills under the guidance of some fabulous mentors. And now I get to do the indie software developer thing all over again.

With trepidation and excitement in equal amounts, today I begin to take those first few tentative steps from “Wannapreneur” towards “Fledgling Startup Founder”. Who knows what happens next.

UPDATE 04/02/2012: ReadyRoll has launched!

Today I am very excited to tell you about a new tool I’ve been working on. It’s called ReadyRoll, and it’s a new type of Visual Studio 2010 project designed with SQL Server database refactoring and developer productivity in mind.

It’s built on the idea that the best way improve a system and evolve its design is to refine it in lots of little increments over time, rather attempting a “big bang” type of change.

The database development tool market has a number of stellar products in it, and so I’m definitely standing on the shoulders of giants here. But I do believe that that developers and database professionals lack a tool that allows them to create a sustainable process in how they develop databases. What is needed is a tool that encourages experimentation, and fosters a virtuous cycle in improving the design of existing schemas.

It’s early days, but what I really want is for ReadyRoll to do for databases what ReSharper has done for code.

There will be a preview release available shortly with a 1.0 release to follow sometime in October. Please drop me an email on dan at danere dot com if you’d like to take part, I’d love to hear your feedback and of course will provide you with a complimentary license on launch for lending me some of your valuable time.

Of course the best way to get to know it is to see it in action! Read more about ReadyRoll, download it now, or watch this short screencast (duration 3:16):

If you can’t see this video, view the MP4 version

My quandary is this: Despite being so close to delivering my software I also feel incredibly far away from doing so. Doubts about the product’s quality, usefulness and how it will ultimately be received are hampering my desire to finish it. I feel that at this stage nothing may be released because I’ve been besieged with a paralysis that threatens to nullify all of my efforts over the past 9 months.

What gives me greater pause to reconsider this folly of mine and just give the while thing up is this concern that my initial users will find the product deeply flawed and I will instantly become too disheartened to go on and get a version one out the door.

I know it sounds ridiculous, I mean who would actually care if the product sucked? I’m hardly in danger of being pelted with rancid tomatoes, since most things on the net that suck tend to simply go unnoticed.

If it is that a fear of being critiqued harshly is what’s holding me back then perhaps the best remedy is to bring that pain forward as soon as possible and face it head on so I can learn from the whole experience. Could it really be any worse than I imagine right now?

I sometimes wonder why the prospect of failure bothers me so much. After all, thought leaders such as of Seth Godin and Eric Ries consider the act of failure to be a vital stepping stone on the path to greatness. No doubt they have faced many failures of their own but managed to persevere and not let it stop them from ultimately delivering something of value to their customers/followers.

I think part of the problem for me in this is that where I stand feels like the loneliest place on earth: right now I have zero customers and not a single soul to share my vision with (i.e. a co-founder).

I’ve seen through the example of single-founder companies like Balsamiq what is actually needed to succeed as a bootstrapped software company. I honestly question whether I have what it takes to achieve anything remotely on the same scale.

But ending it at this point really isn’t an option. Right now I really just need to put my doubts to one side (along with all of the sage advice I’ve been lucky enough to receive in my lifetime) and just finish this thing so I can find out if anyone would want to use it, let alone pay for it. Yep, it’s time to man-up and take those vital steps forward over the precipice.

The challenge is this: 1 week to have a release ready to go… whatever state it may be in by then. It just needs to be something usable. Indeed, it may be far easier said than done but at this point I have to just grit my teeth and get on with it.

In the IT world, this is nothing new and I have always felt a bit spoilt by this. Ever since the dawn of the information age people have been realising their hair-brained ideas, often on their own and without external help (or hinderance!). Inherently, programming lacks the constraints of the physical world as there’s very little upfront spend required and no expensive manufacturing involved.

And now this same philosophy is starting to take hold in more traditional industries, aided by the very technology that helped inspire it. They’re calling this new breed of pioneer’s “makers” and they come from all walks of life: from artists to jewellers, to scientists and fashion designers. This exciting DIY movement has seen a resurgence in interest over the past couple of years, with inspiration from Maker Faire (an annual gathering of makers that takes place in multiple cities in the US and the UK started by Dale Dougherty), the proliferation of 3D printers like Ultimaker, electronic prototyping platforms like Arduino and outsourced “making systems” such as Ponoko.

With everyday people taking control of the design, implementation and ultimately the marketing and distribution of products, traditional (i.e. complacent) industry should be more than a little worried about its future in a connected world.

Watch Dale Dougherty and others from Pixar et al talk about the Maker Movement at Google Tech Talks:

To me there’s nothing a small, highly-motivated team can do when inspired to achieve a common goal.

But at the same time, I have seen this kind of environment turn insular and it’s people become unwilling to accept external input. Somewhere along the way, that same wonderful camaraderie builds a kind of collective hubris. In this environment, wheels are constantly re-invented, best practises are often disregarded and the viewpoints of outsiders are rarely sought or at worst met with xenophobic disdain.

You won’t see much of this breed on the ‘net, save for the occasional question posed on Stack Overflow. Its type tend to observe rather than participate, only venturing outside their protected habitats briefly to gather what information and tools they need to get the job done.

Yet despite all this, the team thrives in this isolated environment, often coming up with innovative and novel solutions to difficult problems and (mostly) delighting stakeholders with the fruits of its labour. The fact is that often this team is so closely aligned with its internal customer’s goals that its technical shortcomings have limited bearing on the end result. Though there can be notable exceptions, as anyone who’s spent time auditing Enterprise Web App security would know!

Yes I’m an Enterprise IT guy — guilty as charged — but I’m starting to realise how much I’ve been missing in “the outside world”. During the last 6 months, as I have taken my first tentative steps into the world of social media and attended my first major conference (you can read about my incredible experience at BoS2010), I have started to feel more and more part of a greater community.

I knew that doing this would be a bit of a humbling and at times scary experience, but what I didn’t expect is how it would make the world feel like a smaller place. Everyday it seems, people are finding new ways to come together, to share ideas and learn from each other’s experiences. If it’s true that grand ideas are formed in the rapid collision of lots of smaller ideas, then the future of the connected world looks very bright indeed.

Perhaps this big IT world could benefit from the trials and tribulations of a little corporate IT world. And maybe I can encourage some of my fellow team members take those first few steps outside as well. Just perhaps.

What happens if your thoughtfully researched, painstakingly-crafted product idea gets copied?

And when that plucky young upstart comes up with a verbatim feature-for-feature copy of your software,  will all those months (or even years) of hard work, all those prototype iterations and tireless experiments with various implementations be for nought?

Before answering “yes” or “no” to this question, there are a couple of factors to consider:

• Your focus and dedication to the problem space, not just the product
  From an outsiders point-of-view, it may seem that you’ve just been clever enough to happen upon an untapped market and create a product that capitalises on it, but really where it all comes from is a dedication to solving a real-world problem. Having this focus means you can never really lose:  if your goal to begin with was to solve a problem, and someone else was inspired by you and did a better job at it, wouldn’t your end-goal have been realised? This of course would presume that your hypothetical competitor possessed the following.
• Your understanding of the problem space
  You’ve lived this problem for years and made the mistakes, challenged your own assumptions, and adapted your approach accordingly. You’ve earned your stripes and have the battle scars to show for it. Your competitors are just playing catch-up and the only insight into the problem space they are getting is in how your product is currently implemented. Or indeed if your product is still just an idea, they’re only getting a “snapshot” of its present (highly volatile) state.

Even though I am still months from launch of my first product in a long long time, I believe we all understand this (at least sub-consciously) because we’ve been customers for many years and know that it’s the vendors that tirelessly focus on solving our problems that keep us coming back.

A couple of weeks ago Parker Thompson of Pivotal Labs tweeted this:

“If an NDA is all that stands between your company and failure you’re already screwed.”

As my product nears launch, I’m going to keep reminding myself of this as it will keep me focused on that end-goal of solving a problem, rather than clinging to the naive hope that somehow I can protect my idea from being “stolen”.