I’ve been asked on first of April if the SQL Hero contest is real or not. Just because the guy that asked me saw a post on a blog that day it doesn't mean that it's a joke. It is as serious as it can be.
To clear this out I abused the kindness of David Reed the man behind this contest, and got a small interview.

But who is David Reed? In his own words a SQL Ranger - one of the few people that achieved the Microsoft Certified Architect Database certification. He is also the Program Manager for SQL Server Community & Samples, and another important thing one of my friends.


Enough talking here’s the good stuff:


CL: Tell us more about the SQL Hero.
dr: You are a SQL Hero, my friend! Teaching people how to use SQL Server is no easy task, is it? SQL Heroes are those folks out there who are getting the job done every day. The ones taking really cool (but sometimes quirky!) products and turning them into real solutions that help people live better lives and make money. Y’all could just as easily go do something easier, and maybe more lucrative, but, I guess, like me, you love what you do.

CL: How do you see the ideal project?
dr: Wow. Hrm. Ideal? I think that every non-trivial project entry will be ideal for someone. One sophont’s signal is another’s noise, no? I would like to see contest entries all over the map. I want to see XNA games that use SQL Server 2008 under the hood. I want to see heart monitor applications that record their sensor data to SQL Server 2008. I want to see chemical and DNA analysis solutions. I want to see tools and utilities that make SQL Server 2008 easier to use. Take any part of SQL Server 2008 (and there are a LOT of parts) and dream with it. Dream big!
I don’t care what SKU level the projects use; if they use Express 2008, that rocks! Two personal project that I would love to see using SQL Server 2008 are a Windows Home Server add-in that functions like a proxy server (so that I don’t have to go fix/learn how to use SquidNT to keep my kids out the scary, dark corners of the internet) and an IPX-proxy/game browser for old games that were cool before TCP/IP was king that I’d like to play with my kids as they get older (like Warcraft). I think both of those would be cool with Express 2008 as the backing store.

CL: Why CodePlex and not Microsoft downloads?
dr: For SQL Server product samples, you mean? Or just the contest? We couldn’t use Microsoft Downloads for the contest because that stuff all has to be signed and vetted carefully… by the time we got everything signed and approved after the contest was over, it would probably be time to start filming my SQL Server reality TV show next year.
The SQL Server Community & Samples team switched over to CodePlex over a year ago, I think. It was before I took this job anyway… The primary drivers, as I understand them, were to get some flexibility in delivery schedule and decouple the samples a little bit from the ship schedule. Also, I think that the focus is really more on growing the open source community around SQL Server.
Since I’m still making this job up as I go along (with significant input from management), I’m really more focused on the community than the product samples. Our samples historically are narrowly feature focused and don’t necessarily give you the best end-to-end focus on the technology. I was an MCS consultant in the field for a couple years before I was abducted by the mothership, and I know that customers want more and better howto samples, but they also need to see real, soup-to-nuts solutions.
Take DotNetNuke, for example. Nobody thinks of that as a SQL Server application, but it’s a great portal that’s waaay outgrown its humble origins as the IBuySpy sample. And last time I checked, it only runs on SQL Server… but I digress.


CL: Can we trust CodePlex?
dr: As in “trust not to lose your code”? Or “trust to be around next year”? With Code Gallery popping up as the flavor of the month, I guess you mean the latter, so I’ll say this: CodePlex had better be around for while, or else! Heh. My team does not “like” CodePlex, but we are committed to using it because it’s central to Microsoft’s open source initiative and because we’ve already invested heavily in our presence there. There are things that we wish they would implement to make our lives easier, and I’m still going to pester them to do it. [I hope they’re listening.] Visual Studio’s open source strategy is so big that it includes both CP and CG as part of their long-term strategy. Code Gallery is intended as the place to put things that aren’t in active development.
Code Gallery is a fork of the CodePlex codebase, and both have warts (like all software products do), but for a product that gives everyone who wants it FREE access to Team Foundation Server and all its plumbing over the internet, a project wiki and a lot of other cool features to support distributed development, I think it’s pretty good. Code Gallery is *not* what we [SQL Server] want for our samples because there’s no way for users to browse the code online @ CG, and we know from experience that the wiki is not intended for formatting code, either. I know DevDiv wants to do more with CG than just a wiki, and we’re optimistic that their improvements to CG will be introduced to CP, too, but without TFS behind it, CG isn’t really what we need. We’ve got a page over in Code Gallery and a number of MVPs and other folks dump SQL Server-related things there that are not being maintained; if it’s under active development by more than one person, CodePlex is the place to put it.
Back to the contest, though. I chose CodePlex for the contest for a number of reasons, but the one to focus on is that CodePlex is where the SQL Server Community & Samples team (all three of us – heh) put our code, and its where we help the rest of the SQLBU put their samples, too. We practically live on CodePlex all day, every day. It’s the place to go when you want to find great examples of how to use SQL Server.

That's all folks, now go to Dave's blog to read more (Calling all SQL Heroes!) and of course to enter the contest.