Bret Kenney (Coding Challenge Update)- Project Management, Learning Python, and SQL (#54)

[00:00:00] Daniel: Hi guys, welcome to dead by tomorrowinterviews. My name is Daniel winter and my co-host is Andrew Monroe. As weexplore different topics that are worth thinking about today, we want to bringin guests to share their own unique perspectives. We hope you enjoy hearingfrom our guests as much as we enjoy talking to them.

[00:00:19] Andrew: Well, hello to our favorite listeners.Welcome back to the show. We have your challenge to coding bootcamp challenge,mid challenge update, and I am sure we will. tidy up that title for theepisode, but a welcome back, we are thrilled to have you guys, and in case yousomehow missed the previous episode, the prequel to this, which we highlyrecommend, because this is definitely a continuation episode, not a standalone,but our challenge for March is coding and specifically Daniel.

[00:00:53] Andrew: Both decide we were going to learn SQLand we left a little teaser in there about a friend of ours, Brett, who wasalso going to learn a language and that ended up being Python. So we've gotbread on and I'm going to toss it over to Daniel to talk to us about who breadis get this show on the road.

[00:01:14] Daniel: I'm pretty excited. Brett is one ofour longest time listeners. And honestly, we've been trying to get him on the podcastfor I kid you not probably a full year, at least. At this point. So we finallywere able to, to find something that maybe Brett was excited enough to talkabout to grace, us with his presence and the jokes on Brett, because this year,um, you know, it's not just you, you do an interview and then you get to go offand kind of do your own things since he joined us for the challenge, that meanswe're actually going to get them for two minutes.

[00:01:48] Daniel: So maybe, maybe it worked out, maybeit was, it was fate that kind of kept it until now, but Brett is, is a goodfriend of ours. I actually met him playing ultimate Frisbee. And then werealized that pretty much everything about our past is identical. And so wedecided that. We should be friends. That Brett is a, uh, he's a project managerat striker.

[00:02:11] Daniel: So he probably, I assume is going tohave a little bit more use for some of the, the technical knowledge that we'vebeen learning this month. Andrew, maybe you'll, you'll get more use from it. Idon't know if I will, but Brett, welcome on excited to have you tell me, uh,tell me how your day has been

[00:02:28] Bret: first off.

[00:02:30] Bret: Hello. Get it. Cause we're doing aprogramming challenge. I just thought that should be, I've been thinking about

[00:02:37] Andrew: Yeah, I got it. I got

[00:02:38] Bret: oh my gosh, tomorrow, I'm going to be onthe podcast with Daniel and Andrew. And what should I say first? I thought,hello world in there. I just said it. And I think

[00:02:47] Daniel: it's going to really resonate with allof our robots,

[00:02:49] Bret: listeners, listeners.

[00:02:51] Bret: You're millions of programmers outthere.

[00:02:54] Andrew: I'm just glad to hear that. You'realso thinking about me in

[00:02:56] Bret: Oh yeah. On a good night. On a goodnight. Well, my day was to answer your question. [00:03:00]day. The weather is nice. I think spring is, is here in Dallas. Um, I'm honoredto be on the show. I'm a huge fan. I would argue that I think I'm y'all'sbiggest fan. And I say that, I say that knowing that there are loved ones andmothers listening to the podcast and I'm just throwing

[00:03:23] Daniel: it out there.

[00:03:24] Daniel: Yeah. My, my mom may take offense,Hilary. I mean, she'll probably hear this episode in like three years and belike, oh yeah, he bread's probably right. But my mom, she's going to probablytext me tomorrow. The episode won't be out tomorrow, but she's still going toprobably texted me tomorrow and take offense at that.

[00:03:41] Daniel: So just, just be ready. That's her

[00:03:43] Bret: words. Well, this is definitely a. I, Ifeel like instead said like an interview. This is, um, one of your fans gettingto join in on the podcast. And this is really cool for me. And it means a lot.And I started listening to the podcast, um, because my friends were doing thiscool thing and I want to support my friends.

[00:04:02] Bret: I've stuck around because you'll put alot of thought into it and it's made me better and challenged me and it's goodcontent friends or not. So thank you all for doing it. There's been reallycool.

[00:04:13] Bret: I'm going to tear up

[00:04:14] Daniel: over here. You even have tissues. Thisis

[00:04:17] Bret: situation you knew, you knew thewaterworks are coming.

[00:04:20] Andrew: We'll have to have a cry break realquick.

[00:04:23] Daniel: So with, with our guests, um, wealways want to take a little bit of time to just let you share a little bitabout who you are. A lot of, a lot of people that kind of means talking aboutwork. Um, sometimes it's talking about different passions and different thingslike that. So we'll, we'll certainly get into.

[00:04:41] Daniel: What we've been doing with our codingchallenge. We'll, we'll kind of devote maybe the back half of our episode forthat. But before we get there, we got to give you the guest treatment, like anyother guest. And so hopefully I didn't, uh, hopefully you haven't been promotedsince the last time I read your resume.

[00:04:57] Daniel: So working at Stryker, obviously we'vegot a mutual love for Frisbee, but tell us, tell us a little bit more about whoBrett kitty is.

[00:05:05] Bret: Yeah, well, I live here in Dallas, justa block. From you Daniel, which is awesome. We've been, the block might be astretch. Yeah. Yeah, we can. Yeah. Six houses or so it's awesome.

[00:05:17] Bret: I'm live here with my wife of eightyears. Um, and our daughter, we are, so we're six weeks behind the parentingjourney behind Daniel and Hillary. So Eden is 16 months old. And, uh, so beinga dad is, has been a blast. Um, but yeah, uh, husband, father. Um, I'm superinto the Jesus thing. I'm not just like a Christian, like, you know, check thebox.

[00:05:43] Bret: Like if you have to choose, like, inthat survey, I'm like into it. I leave two Bible studies. Darn it. I mean, I'm,I'm deep.

[00:05:51] Daniel: Oh, wait, wait, do we need to like gobelieve that? Darn it.

[00:05:54] Bret: Yeah. I believe it out. They'll be like,oh, what did he say? He's edgy.[00:06:00]

[00:06:01] Bret: Yeah. Um, for his, as far as hobbies, wemet playing ultimate. Haven't gotten to play a little bit, but we'll be backout there soon. Um, What else? What else? I can't, I'm not, as far as hobbiesgo, I can't hang with you on when it comes to gaming. So, uh, I feel like Ifell behind in college and just haven't caught up, but I replaced that with,with, uh, board games.

[00:06:23] Bret: So super into nerdy board games. Ifthere's any other listeners who are got some favorite board games,

[00:06:29] Daniel: Let me know. Yeah. Let, let the recordshow. So first of all, Brett says that he's kind of fallen off in the videogames thing, but after this episode, we're going to, we're going to play someof the new to K and if we don't play on the same team, Brett will definitelybeat me.

[00:06:43] Daniel: It'll probably be with Ben Simmonsbecause he's broken in those games. So, uh, don't, don't let them fool you thenon the board game front again. Um, we, uh, we, we recently. We're able tofinally kind of put some beef behind us. I had like a 15 game losing streak ina game called unmatched, which is really awesome.

[00:07:02] Daniel: Brett introduced me to it and thenproceeded to beat me at least 15 times in a row. But it's true. I finallyfinally got a win a week or two ago and, um, I'm willing to play again. Ithat's, that's all I needed. Just

[00:07:15] Bret: one the record show. I did not throw thegame, but I wanted to, because I was like, oh my gosh, my friend who is solike, It's the kind of friend who will play board games with you, knowing thatyou love them, even if he is not like, I can't always tell if he's into it.

[00:07:30] Bret: That's like I'm bout to never haveDaniel play another board game with me because he can not win at this game. Andhe's so competitive. I didn't throw the game, but I considered it. And uh, butnow he won and we can play again. So we still get to be board game buddies,injured, complete board games with me next.

[00:07:49] Andrew: I would love to play. I heard aboutthe, and so I want you to know Brett Daniel didn't tell me about the board gameuntil he won a game. I had not known how many games y'all played or is thatyour playing? And in general he is. He's a little insane sometimes. So I getit, but yeah, I'd love to play it. I was going to ask you about what it's likebeing a project manager and I'm prepping you because I will still ask you thatbefore we get into the code.

[00:08:19] Andrew: But first, I want to ask you aboutboard games because I love board games.

[00:08:23] Bret: Favorite.

[00:08:23] Andrew: What is your favorite?

[00:08:25] Bret: board game. And I say this as like a,this is, this would be my recommendation for people, whether they're like superinto board games or they've just played like your standard, like cluemonopolies. Yeah. You know, life, those kind of games would be small world.Have you played small world?

[00:08:43] Bret: Yes.

[00:08:44] Andrew: Yes. So we'll get to that in a second,but yes, I love

[00:08:47] Bret: good. Like two to

[00:08:48] Andrew: bit. I played.

[00:08:49] Bret: can even play with six, just simpleboard game, just land grabbing game, but then it makes it fun by, um, you playwith different races and they're paired [00:09:00]up with random magic, like powers and abilities. And so it's a strategy gamejust mixed up. Just enough randomness and chaos, where it's just superaccessible, super fun.

[00:09:11] Bret: If you're even thinking about getting aboard game and get into like board gaming, get, get small world small. It's myrecommendation.

[00:09:19] Andrew: So I've got something for you therethat I can actually maybe bring to the table that you might not know about onsmall world. And I'm very excited because this is actually my segue into tryand get you to play with me. Uh, you can get small world on steam, uh, on thecomputer and it is a fully fleshed out.

[00:09:38] Andrew: Um, Digital version of small worldonline. So you can play board games with people on the computer across, youknow, The state. So, uh, I've been wanting to play it. I got it at a sell. Itwas pretty cheap, but like even the full price wasn't too bad. I think it wasstill cheaper than the actual board game. Um, and you don't have to set it up.

[00:09:57] Andrew: It sets itself up. So, uh, it's prettycool. The only time I've played it, I'm going to throw this out there too now,because it reminds me a little bit of you and Daniel climbed. I know you didn'tdo this. I have a friend that I played a lot of board games with or used tobefore he actually moved to. But I swear he only introduced me to games afterhe figured out how to play him.

[00:10:19] Andrew: And so he'd be like, it was in smallworld was one of those. That's why I was kinda like, well, yeah, I've played itonce. So he'd get him, he'd play and he'd be like, Hey, let's, let's go playthis game a big, okay, great. And we'd play and he'd dominate me.

[00:10:32] Bret: Yeah.

[00:10:33] Andrew: And I'm trying to figure out the rulesthat he's told and shenanigans.

[00:10:37] Bret: like pulling out expansion pack

[00:10:38] Andrew: so I've played a lot of games oncelike that.

[00:10:40] Bret: up a yet.

[00:10:42] Andrew: Yeah, just crazy stuff. He's like, oh,don't worry. I'll teach you how to play or we're going to just hammer him. He'slike, oh, by the way, you can do this thing watch. And I'm like, oh,

[00:10:49] Bret: Hey, so, okay. Wait, what's your, what'syour favorite favorite

[00:10:52] Bret: board game?

[00:10:53] Andrew: mine is probably carcass on,

[00:10:55] Daniel: probably my

[00:10:55] Bret: answer

[00:10:56] Andrew: I, I love carcasses. Yeah. Uh, if Dand D counts as a board game, it could maybe be D and D just cause I love thesocial aspect and, uh, because competitive levels, you know, differ so often,it's nice to have a game where it doesn't necessarily, you know, like it, itbugs me when I play with people that are competitive on. And then it can alsobe frustrating if you know, you've got someone who's too competitive, that's,you know, not letting everybody else have fun. So that's why like D and D is,it kind of brings, it takes up that conflict of levels of interest, andeverybody can just kind of go with it. But whenever I want to beat somebodyParkinson.

[00:11:40] Bret: Building, building roads or you.

[00:11:43] Daniel: okay.

[00:11:44] Andrew: Uh, farmer all day, baby farmer. Yep.Sneak. I get that. When at the end you don't see it coming. Nobody else has

[00:11:55] Bret: So would

[00:11:56] Andrew: on no, one's going to people. I'mlike, what is going on though? We're talking about coding on this [00:12:00] episode. Not farming.

[00:12:01] Daniel: you know, and if you played carcass onwith Andrew, then he will not see the farmland like. If, if I want to wincarcass on, all I need to do is bring a friend who's willing to just try totake the farmland from Andrew and they'll just battle it out the whole game.

[00:12:15] Daniel: And I can just build my castles

[00:12:17] Bret: and okay. I'm taking the strategically.

[00:12:22] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, I will. The farm is mineforever. I will, I will dump 110% in. There'll be like 10 moves in. I'll have10 people out there. All right. That's it. I'm playing the rest of the game.All right. Before we get into the coding, I wanted to know what a projectmanager does on a day-to-day basis. Like today is Tuesday, March 14th or 15th.

[00:12:46] Andrew: I'm not even sure what the actual dateis. What'd you do today? What does a project managers,

[00:12:50] Bret: Yeah, well,

[00:12:51] Andrew: life look like? And how does codingaffected if you want to lead in the coding, tell us why that might

[00:12:56] Andrew: be something you were wanting

[00:12:57] Andrew: to

[00:12:57] Bret: Stryker, which is a big medical tech.Because everything from implants to medical beds, to robots, my division, we dointegrated operating rooms. So like operating room, infrastructure, equipment,like surgical lighting, medical, booms, um, audio, visual, um, uh, integrationequipment, um, you know, connectivity equipment.

[00:13:22] Bret: And so we, we kind of design, um,installing. And, um, implement the, these are solutions. So on good days onrare, good days, I feel like a true project manager on managing, uh, you know,scope budget, um, and in timeline and planning meetings. Um, but then on dayslike today, I am, uh, trying to make sure I've got installers where they'resupposed to be and ordering parts that didn't show up and calling customers.

[00:13:56] Bret: Making sure they're on track forinstalls. And I don't know. I mean, it depends on the day. Um, but a lot oftimes it's just putting out little fires and pretending like, you know whatyou're doing

[00:14:06] Bret: emails while on, on meetings. And that'swhat it was today. Emails and text.

[00:14:12] Daniel: Honestly, that sounds like my daypretty, pretty similar. A lot of making sure people are aware where they needto be. So as you described some of your day to day, and as we think about allright, you, you wanted to learn Python, um, where, where is some of theoverlap?

[00:14:34] Daniel: Like I, I have some background in Cplus plus a little bit and like Java, not a ton. Um, but is that something youfeel like you're going to be able to bring into your day-to-day or, or if not,why? Why Python?

[00:14:48] Bret: Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, I feel like I'mjust getting now far enough into where I think I can realize, like my goal,like my goal is to kind of automate some of my just [00:15:00]day to day.

[00:15:01] Bret: Practices, that would be like my stretchgoal for like this month, by the end of it. Even if it's just something small,um, I want to be able to just automate part of my like daily or weekly routine.Um, but on top of that, I just mean hadn't coded, hadn't done any programmingsince, since college and wanted a super accessible language and researchPython.

[00:15:23] Bret: So, uh, but yeah, my goal would be toautomate just the simple processes, um, and, and make my days with. A littlebit more streamlined.

[00:15:32] Daniel: So with, with the software that youhave at your company and technology and things like that, are you going to haveto get any specific, like edit access to be able to automate things?

[00:15:43] Daniel: Are you talking about being able toautomate something like scheduling for your installers? Or have you started tothink about yet? Like what you could.

[00:15:51] Bret: Yeah. Yeah. So specifically like pullingcertain reports, so taking big data sets and then pulling reports and then justpulling like my information. So, you know, at any time I've got, you know, 50projects going on at a time, um, ranging from multi-cloud operating roominstalls to just quick surgical light upgrades, um, in single rooms.

[00:16:13] Bret: So being able to pull my informationfrom, you know, the, the large data set of, um, You know, a whole month ofnationwide installs and then just pull on like almost creating like customreports and stuff, um, rather than having to, um, kind of pull it fromdifferent systems and then putting it into Excel or some other type ofspreadsheet.

[00:16:34] Bret: So, um,

[00:16:36] Daniel: yeah, as you talk about that, thatkind of sound

[00:16:40] Bret: like what I'm wanting to do. You'd belike, man. Learn Python. I should have been wanting to seek sequel. I wanted tobe,

[00:16:51] Andrew: It's a hundred percent when I wasthinking, I was like, oh no, Brett messed up. He should be in SQL.

[00:16:58] Bret: yeah,

[00:16:58] Andrew: okay. Python works too. You need toknow both, honestly, if you want to be able to really be effective.

[00:17:03] Daniel: we'll just do another month. And thenwe'll flip that we'll learn Python

[00:17:07] Bret: after run it back. Y'all can move on toother challenges. March the marches challenge. I still think it's funny thaty'all went from, uh, um, like a happiness challenge to, okay. What nextprogramming?

[00:17:23] Daniel: Well, yeah, we, we don't necessarilyclaim to have a ton of rhyme and reason to what we're doing. You know, maybe wedo have rhyme and reason I take it back. We had to, we had to learn how to. Youknow, manage our days and be happy and you know, what, what we're able to do toget out of the, down in the dumps so that we could beat ourselves down withlearning programming.

[00:17:47] Daniel: That's that's what it was. It wasstrategic.

[00:17:50] Bret: You can edit that, right, Andrew.

[00:17:53] Andrew: Okay. I got to throw my 2 cents in onthat real quick, because I I've had a blast [00:18:00]learning sequel. Um, and, and this is hopefully a lesson that. Others can listor take from it, but learning something so fresh and new, obviously there's asmall learning curve, like figuring out how to get a PG admin up and getting,figuring, deciding that Postgres SQL was what I was going to use.

[00:18:23] Andrew: Um, like there was some weird stuff. Iwas like, this is so dumb and hard. Like I can't even get started with this isannoying, but once I got rolling. And I'm assuming you guys run into this too.And a lot of people probably listening to as well. It was nice to be able toget pretty simple stuff as like a whim, like learning the select, uh, you know,insert table from insert a column.

[00:18:51] Andrew: I'm sorry, I did that

[00:18:51] Daniel: I might do do our listeners. I don'tknow.

[00:18:54] Andrew: being able to. Yeah. So was the thing.So like learning really, really basic syntax for CQL and I'm sure Python's thesame way I'm getting these like kind of small wins by learning something isreally cool. It's like learning a new language, but like one that you've neverdabbled in.

[00:19:12] Andrew: It's not like trying to pick upSpanish for the 12th time where you already know a lot of the basic words. It'slike trying to pick up something crazy. That you know, nothing. And so when youlearn that first word, you're like, Hey, I got one. I, I know what this wordmeans. Um, so I don't know, for me, it's been a really big kind of dopamineboost being like, oh, Hey look, you got that.

[00:19:31] Andrew: You got that. I'm just now runninginto the parts where it's like, okay, this is taking two or three or four.Bangs of the head against the wall to get it down. And so like, sure. Thediscouragements now kind of sinking a little bit, but like the last 15 days,um, it's been really chill. Like I, I watch a video practice it real quick.

[00:19:53] Andrew: I'm like, Hey, I've got that down. Andit's, it's really simple stuff because it is, it's simple stuff, but you haveto know those simple things and it's not like trying to learn likegrammatically correct Spanish. Have you picked up. 50% of the vocab wordsalready. Like we already gotten past the easy part in Spanish.

[00:20:06] Andrew: So

[00:20:06] Bret: I

[00:20:07] Daniel: would generally.

[00:20:08] Daniel: I agree on the days that I feel likeI've got some of the brain power to be able to do it. Um, I think some of the,some of where it's not as fun or where it's challenging. Like if we look at mychart, there were three days in a row that on the lessons and concepts learned,I just put rough week that I didn't learn anything.

[00:20:32] Daniel: I didn't do anything that day. It was,I was pretty absorbed. Work and personal life. And I think that is what can bea little bit tough about a challenge. And that's where I'm glad we sort of dida happiness challenge first, um, is just this feeling of I failed because todayI didn't make any progress towards what this goal that I have set was.

[00:20:57] Daniel: But since we've, this is now [00:21:00] our second challenge and kind of in doingthe happiness challenge, it wasn't like every single day was a win. it wasstill useful over the course of the entire month. That's helpful now to me tofeel like, okay, you know what? I missed three days. It's not the end of theworld.

[00:21:16] Daniel: Um, I'm not calling this challenge offailure. You know, there were still things that I was able to learn and I justneed to, instead of hitting 1:00 AM and saying, I didn't do my SQL today, Ihave to log it. I'm going to try to just struggle through this at 1:00 AM so Ican check the box. I feel free to say, you know what, it's a rough week.

[00:21:36] Daniel: I'm going to, I'm going to call itgood for today. And I'll, I'll try to learn something in a day or two whenit's.

[00:21:41] Andrew: Sure. Well, and that's something thatwe all need to be able to do. Like consistency is great, but sometimes you justgotta be okay with not, you know, hitting the goal for a day. What about you,Brett? Have you been consistent? Has it been easy, hard? Do you hate Pythonnow? Like what's your take on a plane

[00:22:05] Bret: like. Yeah. I'm like running 50 50 rightnow. So I'm hoping to turn it quarter here, midway through the month and justbe, uh, off to the races and learning a whole bunch in this back half of themonth. Cause you have kind of similar to the annual, um, going into March, likethis was going to be a, um, you know, just a good month to kind of rework kindof work-life balance and even take on like challenges like this.

[00:22:31] Bret: And then all of a sudden. Um, I'm havingto cover down again at work and, um, even just had some cool personalopportunities, like come up and things got busy. And so I've had like a fewdays in a row where I'm consistent and then a few days where I'm not. Um, so I,I feel like I've got some catching up to do, but, um, even a few of the daysthat, um, I, you know, I check the box, it was.

[00:22:58] Bret: Um, in the evening and I pull up mylaptop, start a video, um, practice in Python, learn some basics. Definitelysome of those days I would not have been doing it if it was just me on my own,trying to learn a program and doing it with you guys. Um, it's gotten mefurther and so it's been cool. Um, so I appreciate y'all invite me to be a partof it, even if at the end of the month, I'm like, man, I should've just beenlike Daniel and Andrew and learn to seafood and I'd actually be able to dowhatever.

[00:23:26] Bret: Go from the start is, but, um, no, it'sbeen good. I feel like all three of us, like we're, we're not, we haven't donemuch programming since college high school never really been a, like, it's likeone course that we had to take in college kind of thing. Is that okay? That'swhere I'm coming from. So

[00:23:43] Daniel: yeah, one course that I got carriedthrough by a man named Muhammad.

[00:23:49] Bret: Thank God for my.

[00:23:56] Andrew: Uh, he's probably out there makingjust Bukusi of money now. [00:24:00] Cause heprobably learned to

[00:24:00] Daniel: cheated. He knew how to code before wecame into the class. I'm still appreciative of him, but.

[00:24:06] Andrew: Well then he definitely is makingmoney. He's smart and he knows that a code. So there was two things you saidthere that triggered something I had to, I guess, speak to. This is why likethe challenges is there is something about doing a thing, doing something thatis outside of your comfort zone outside of, outside of that. With somebody elseor other people, honestly, the more people I think that are holding youaccountable, um, the, the easier it is to be consistent and do it more often.

[00:24:40] Andrew: Uh, there's so many things that I justdon't do on my own. Like going back to Spanish or, you know, journaling orwhatever, coding, anything you want to pick, you can almost say like, Hey, whenAndrew did something well, It's because I was doing it with Daniel and I waslike, Hey Daniel, let's do this thing.

[00:24:58] Andrew: Let's go do a race and four months andtrain for a race. Let's, you know, work on our Spanish, whatever it is. Um, sohighly recommend doing these kinds of things and it doesn't have to be codingor happiness. Take a buddy, pick a group of buddies and get it going. Like, youknow, we have a, there's obviously more friends than the three of us gettingsome of our friend groups to get on with this kind of stuff.

[00:25:23] Andrew: I would absolutely love, I don't knowif any of them would actually be about it, but having like four or five peopleall doing the same thing, like that is kind of like a weird dream of mine. So Ilove it. Um, but that said, whenever we're talking about, you know, you'relearning your Python, Daniels learning SQL, um, I'm already know. A hundredpercent of that Daniel's database that he works on day in and day out is SQLbased. Does Stryker use something similar or what is y'all's backend look likethat you're accessing or is everything really a lot of like Google calendars,GML and you know, a hodgepodge of different services? Or do you have like a, acentralized database that a lot of

[00:26:08] Bret: awesome question. And I wish I I'll haveto see if I can, uh, pull up a screenshot and it's something I could actuallysend to you, but they're all of, we have so many systems that are constantlytalking to each other. And, um, even just from a broad level, even in mydivision, we actually work out of like two ERP.

[00:26:27] Bret: We work workout with like both Oracleand SAP. Um, order tracking. Um, so just with that said it is a mess and it'sactually something that our company, as a whole, we're trying to streamline andkind of condense. Um, so yeah, I mean, you name it. If there's, there'sprobably something there's different reports.

[00:26:48] Bret: Even at my level, I'm mostly workingwith power BI to pull different reports and pull data in and out of like, youknow, I'm working out power BI in Salesforce, um, in the back of. [00:27:00] And that's something that I'd have to diginto as far as what the actual, um, I'm sure there's some SQL in there.

[00:27:06] Andrew: Gotcha. It's funny. I've actuallylooked at Oracle, uh, for our company and I just they're a little pricey for usand it was a lot more stuff than we needed. And so, and I actually was justlooking at power BI the other day, because I have almost no ability to dovisualization with whatever. And, uh, I was like, man, maybe that's what I needto do.

[00:27:27] Andrew: And I jumped in and I was like, nottoday, Satan bounced off of it. So I get it. It's hard to, especially if you'reusing that many different things as they're all individual platforms that Iwould not want to touch without being pretty familiar in itself.

[00:27:44] Bret: Yeah, I

[00:27:45] Daniel: know. I know for a fact that SQL iswhat a lot of them. Report stuff is built off of, which is the only reason thatI was familiar with it in the first place. And so, um, there are a few, I feellike what, what might be interesting to me and I'll start is just kind ofsharing some of the things that I was able to learn so far.

[00:28:07] Daniel: And again, maybe this can be useful ifsomebody is trying to figure out if they wanna pick up SQL, if they wanna pickup Python and say like, all right, If these guys have no coding background andin 14, 15 days can learn some of this stuff. Maybe this is worth, worth pickingup and, and, you know, give a little bit of background on that.

[00:28:25] Daniel: So for my company, we use SQL for allsorts of data storage and in a role that I play, which is essentially kind oflike an operations director. There's so much data. I have to be able to pullon, uh, my people, my clients, like saying, you know, our, what is our metricsin terms of, um, how efficient Lee our staff is working?

[00:28:55] Daniel: How can we use that with staffingreports? You know, what is our, um, net promoters score? Like what is ourutilization across all these kinds of all this sort of stuff. Like all of thatgoes into SQL tables and. In the past, if I needed a data point, I was like,okay, I need to know the number of this type of solution that was done for thisclient on this date.

[00:29:20] Daniel: And then how many of those were tiedto particular survey and what the score is and all that kind of stuff. If thereport didn't already exist, I basically had to submit that report request toour data team and they, you would have to work with me back and forth on, um,the, the requirements. And then they would sort of build the report either onetime.

[00:29:39] Daniel: It was useful enough, you know, theywould give me the drop-downs where I can just run that data and over and over.So now that I've been going through SQL, I have at least a semi betterunderstanding of some of the prompts that they're putting in to run thosereports. And so Andrew alluded to earlier, there's a [00:30:00]select.

[00:30:00] Daniel: And from, it's kind of like the mostbasic thing that you write out in SQL, which is saying select whatever. Columnsof data you want from whatever table you want it to come from. So if I have atable that has a health pro name, and then it has a net promoter score and youknow, it has a date, then I can say select health care names, like net promoterscore from a table, and then it'll pull those, those pieces of data.

[00:30:32] Daniel: And then where you get to get intosome of the nuances. Um, there are all sorts of things you can do to basicallyright. What I would call if statements and SQL it's called case win, where it'sdifferent criteria have to be met in order to pull that data. And you can usejoin to pull different tables together.

[00:30:52] Daniel: And really just, even in a couple ofweeks of working with. I feel like at a minimum, I now have a betterunderstanding if I want to go back to the reporting team and ask them to buildsomething for, for me, I can at least make a more educated request. And thenhopefully by the end of this, my goal would be to talk to one of our directorson the it side and say, Hey, can you, can you give me the plug-in to the SQLside of things?

[00:31:19] Daniel: So I can try to actually write ascript and get some of this data for my. So that's kind of been my experienceso far. Andrew, I'm curious. I know you had a database you wanted to unlock.What, what, what have you learned? Are you

[00:31:32] Bret: getting any closer to it? Yes.

[00:31:37] Andrew: Okay. So first I've got to agree withyou, uh, which, you know, typical, but it has been kind of fun becauseeverything we do, um, is based off the software called sonar. And that's veryspecific to our industry, but it's all SQL. And just, just going through this lasthalf month of it, I was like, oh, this makes so much sense.

[00:32:01] Andrew: So anybody that is working in any kindof. Background like that. And when we say 15 days, we're talking about like 30minutes a day tops. Um, there's been plenty of days where I like it was 30minutes total, but it was like probably 10 minutes of watching videos and like15 minutes of me practicing what was in the video and then playing the videosome more, um, very, very minimal effort, honestly, in my opinion.

[00:32:26] Andrew: And it has had this huge. On myunderstanding of what is happening in the background of this thing that I usefor six to 12 hours a day, depending on what kind of day I'm having. Um, soit's pretty cool. Uh, funnily enough, on the database, I was like, basicallyafter I figured out what was going on, I was like, okay, cool.

[00:32:49] Andrew: Uh, I know how to upload a file here.Let me upload this database. So I tried to drop it in. And it didn't work. Andhonestly, I still don't know why it's a dot [00:33:00]SQL file. Um, Postgres only once a tar file. And I looked up how to convert aCQL to a SQL, to a dot tar. And it was like, uh, you can do it if you pay abunch of money for how big of a file it is.

[00:33:18] Andrew: And all these files are huge who has afive Meg size. Database. That's just BS. So anyways, a table that I was like,okay, I need to be learning, not playing with this by the end of this, probablyI'll figure out a way to get it

[00:33:30] Bret: I want that for you.

[00:33:32] Andrew: so I have not

[00:33:34] Bret: that, that data files that is thetreasure you have to.

[00:33:40] Andrew: it's well, I'm going to get into itand I'm going to be like, oh, I know so little, uh, but I mean, just with whatI've got, it's it's little stuff. Like someone will be like, Hey. Um, I paid abill back in, you know, April, 2018. Uh, what was that bill? And then we'relike, wait, we don't know it's in the old database.

[00:33:59] Andrew: Uh, we don't have access to, how doyou not have access to your history? I'm like, well, what do we have? We justdon't know how to get it into. So like little stuff like that, I'm almostpaused. I won't be able to, you know, pull up that customer ID and, uh, pulltheir data from it. Cause I know how to do that.

[00:34:14] Andrew: Now. I just have to figure out why my,uh, I see quilt doesn't want to work. I also, coincidentally, um, was spinningup an AWS server to put a Microsoft SQL server on it for this whole otherproject at the company. And it was kind of fun because I was like, oh, Iactually almost understand why and what's happening now that I'm doing thismiserably spun the server up.

[00:34:40] Andrew: Like I, I suppose. Probably three daystrying to figure out AWS and how to get a server up and get all this softwareloaded into it. And the developer, uh, ended up having to take my creds anddelete everything and do it himself. So that was disheartening, but I tried andI at least understood where I was coming from, even though I was unsuccessful.So, uh, I guess yay for learning. Um, Application has not happened yet

[00:35:11] Bret: fair.

[00:35:11] Daniel: And the, the goal for the end of themonth is still the database. Is that

[00:35:15] Bret: where your.

[00:35:19] Andrew: Yep. I think I'm honestly not worriedabout it. Um, if all else fails, I know I mentioned, so there's a whole bunchof different ways and Python's the same way you've got different. Uh, this iswhere I'm gonna butcher it, but like modules that you can be working with, um,and sequels kind of the same way as well, where you've got these differentalmost versions of SQL, like, Hey, which, which version of sync are you wantingto use?

[00:35:45] Andrew: And what does the user interface thatmatches that version of SQL look like? And basically the syntax all kind ofmakes sense. Especially the, the basics that we're learning. We haven't gotteninto very, I don't think Daniel and I have gotten into very specific, like, oh,This is [00:36:00] that style of CQL specificstuff.

[00:36:03] Andrew: We're learning the basic, basic sexgoing to apply across all flavors of SQL. Um, same with what bread's doing withPython. I assume. Um, we, we aren't getting to the specifics yet. So if allelse fails, I'll just go spin up a different, um, SQL you know, like theMicrosoft SQL server, uh, something like that.

[00:36:22] Andrew: And I will see if that takes SQL filebecause something has to, um, it just might not be. Or it might just not be,uh, I said, Postgres, that's the, that's the flavor. It might not be PG admin,which is what I'm using to interface with my

[00:36:38] Bret: And are you just, you have, you have tounlock that

[00:36:40] Andrew: I might just have to find a differentinterface.

[00:36:43] Bret: We got, if we need to band together, mylimited Python knowledge, um, crewing in y'all's knowledge, we got it. We gottaget it up. I don't know. We gotta do it. We'll figure it out. That's the goal?

[00:36:58] Andrew: If all else fails, we'll reach out toDaniel. We'll get Daniel to get his it team to unlock a dummy server for him.And then we'll back backdoor my file into his dummy server.

[00:37:09] Bret: plan.

[00:37:13] Andrew: And they'll be like, Hey, how are youburning like 10 gigs on our cloud server here, Daniel, we gave you like fivemegs of data to play with

[00:37:22] Daniel: it's for the good it's for the greatergood. Every Brett, tell us, tell us about Python. What

[00:37:29] Bret: have you learned? Oh my gosh. So littleit's incredible. Um, actually I was super excited, just starting things that.Not programming since college. I just, I was like, man, I don't even know whereto start, what to download, um, what editor to use and found just a couple ofquick resources.

[00:37:49] Bret: And it was cool. I like day one or daytwo. I was typing in code and doing, you know, the, the typical just printhello world. Um, so from there I've mostly just done basic, uh, like input,output, basic arithmetic. I've done some, um, Working with some datasets anddoing some conversions, but it's mostly like basic arithmetic functions and,um, nothing too fancy yet.

[00:38:16] Bret: So I got some, some more learning to do.

[00:38:19] Daniel: So it was a goal is still end of monthautomate something,

[00:38:23] Bret: even something small I'd love to. Yeah.That's still the goal.

[00:38:26] Daniel: And do you like, if you wanted to,could you go. And start writing code today, or are you going to have to get itto unlock something?

[00:38:36] Bret: Well, right now I'll probably have to,um, do some manual work on the front end to be able to pull the data set.

[00:38:44] Bret: And some of the stuff for that I want towork with, I'd have to partner with my it team to truly automate everythingthat I, yeah. So I'm still learning and we'll see where I'm at at the end ofthe month. And, um, but yeah, I would definitely have some more steps to do.To, to, uh, [00:39:00] I dunno, um, streamlinesome things with my, my work, what I do on day to day.

[00:39:06] Bret: Well, I'm hopeful.

[00:39:07] Daniel: I'm excited to, for each of us to kindof report back where we end up and, you know, if all of us are foiled by inBrett and I's case, our it and Andrew's case, I guess it's, uh, I don't know,software accepting

[00:39:23] Bret: your file.

[00:39:25] Andrew: There's really no excuse for me tofail at this. I've got a credit card. I've got full access to the data. I'vegot way more access than I should have to anything.

[00:39:36] Bret: Yes.

[00:39:37] Andrew: super admin, our

[00:39:38] Bret: I'm jealous of your power.

[00:39:40] Andrew: Uh,

[00:39:41] Daniel: you're the chosen one. All right.Here's here's the deal, Andrew. If, if Brett and I get foiled and our attemptsto get the access that we need with our company resource. Just, uh, just makeus consultants for planes, internet, and

[00:39:55] Bret: yeah.

[00:39:56] Daniel: And just let us run rampant

[00:39:59] Bret: on.

[00:40:00] Bret: All right.

[00:40:01] Andrew: Absolutely. I will let you know, BrettScott, uh, kind of his stuff going on. My inbox could use some coding, justsome custom reports. Y'all are welcome to do whatever you want.

[00:40:15] Daniel: a backup plan. Let's do it.

[00:40:17] Andrew: Yeah. And honestly, we can't breakthat much. Like on one

[00:40:24] Bret: the worst that could have it.

[00:40:29] Andrew: oh yeah, yeah. I should take thatback, but I'm not going to even stand by that until the worst happens.

[00:40:38] Daniel: All right. So, well, we'll obviouslycircle back at the end of the month and we'll report on our collectivesuccesses. Um, either, either we'll we'll get access and we'll make a light andStryker much better places, or we'll take planes internet to the moon. One ofthose things is going to definitely happen.

[00:40:59] Bret: That's our fallback plan. I mean, comeon.

[00:41:03] Andrew: I liked it. I liked the positivity.April's challenge how to do a good job hunt.

[00:41:13] Daniel: How, how the interview

[00:41:15] Bret: well

[00:41:15] Andrew: No reason.

[00:41:16] Bret: resume building.

[00:41:20] Andrew: That's the real, that's the realbackup plan.

[00:41:23] Daniel: Well, Brett, since you are a specialguest on the episode and you're, you're being interviewed, we do always get.The opportunity and the right for storytelling. So we're at the end of this episode.And again, the nice thing is maybe you've got a couple of stories you want totell. Well, you can, you can share the next episode as well.

[00:41:43] Daniel: So too. It is, it is your story time.

[00:41:48] Bret: What would you like to share? Oh, okay.Well, buckle up guys. I've got two stories and I'll have to think of morestories for the next episode. You know, I actually, I have a story for eachone. [00:42:00] Um, I know previous episodescause I'm a longtime listener, uh, but people have shared stories, just funstories that were about Delta relationships and, and cool things that y'allhave done in the past.

[00:42:14] Bret: I have a story for each of you, Andrew,first for you. I know we've only gotten two. I feel like our friendship is madestronger through Daniel. Who's the bridge. Like we've only gotten to hang out ahandful of. But I feel like we keep, yeah. We keep up with each other throughDaniel, which is awesome. I love that.

[00:42:32] Bret: And you've been through, I mean, I hear yourvoice every other week on podcasts, but, um, you know, don't

[00:42:39] Andrew: sorry

[00:42:40] Bret: Hey, also with, with that, I want to saythat you are, you're really good at self deprecating humor, but you weresneaky. Smart. Okay. Like, I'm a huge fan. You are. I feel like you're, you'rejust like selling yourself as this underdog, like high, but you're uh, you'resharp, dude.

[00:42:59] Bret: You're sharp, dude. Andrew. Um,

[00:43:02] Daniel: that's, that's, Andrew's kryptonite.That's Andrew's kryptonite. So it was just to be fair. He thrives on peopledoubting him. So I just, and maybe I shouldn't have said that maybe that givesa secret

[00:43:17] Bret: way. Yeah,

[00:43:19] Andrew: giving away all my secrets today,

[00:43:22] Bret: but the, okay, so I I'm bad with yeah.

[00:43:25] Bret: Yeah. I'm getting back to story.

[00:43:26] Bret: Time story time. I think three years agowe played in a beach Frisbee tournament and bad. The timelines would check,check my timeline, but I want to say three years ago, when down in Galveston,it's a one day sand beach Frisbee tournament. It's brutal. It starts out firstgame, super fun. But then by game, You're just, you're done.

[00:43:47] Bret: Your legs are done, but you're stillplaying. Um, so first game we get out there in the morning. First game, it'slike four and four. We're running in the sand. We're like all warmed up hype.We got a pretty good squad. And Andrew, I don't remember what you tour, but youhurt your knee. Like first game, like tour something, several ligaments, pop,pop, and I having had knee injuries.

[00:44:12] Bret: Um, how you handled it? First of all,you, you played it off pretty cool, but you hung out the rest of the day withthe team. Like you stayed all day, like just hanging out, eat snacks, cheeringeverybody on. And I'll never forget. I'm like, man, I was just getting to knowyou, but I was like, I, I wouldn't do that.

[00:44:31] Bret: Like, I wouldn't have that much teamspirit where I'd be able to hang out, represent and have such a good attitudeafter just hurting myself and being. And so I, I share that story. It just,man, I so admired you. I don't, I, from that point on one way has never seensomebody who that could have such a good like team spirit and just have thatmentality.

[00:44:53] Bret: Um, Daniel, uh, um, you, I've never seensomeone who is, uh, so intentional [00:45:00]with their time, but also so generous with their time. Um, when I think I waslike a month away from. Eden's due date. So Angela is like super pregnant. Wedecided to remodel our kitchen. Um, hindsight, not the best timing. Uh, we didget it done shortly after she was born.

[00:45:19] Bret: Um, but I remember needing help to demothe kitchen. And you immediately said yes, carved out a whole day and wedestroyed the. And there is literally like your sweat and I think some blood, alittle bit of blood in the, yeah, in the walls and floors of, uh, our newlyrenovated kitchen, but

[00:45:40] Daniel: I was need of rebar and comp,literally rebar and

[00:45:43] Bret: con yes, Andrew.

[00:45:44] Bret: I've got to send you some photos of 1951home,

[00:45:49] Andrew: Yes. I want to see this. I'll put themin the show notes. If you send them

[00:45:51] Bret: home. We had the classic tile look at,you know what, the little four inch square tiles counter. And then like abacksplash black and white, old school checkered look, I didn't realize thatthat was on top of even older, like pastel yellow title that was on top of likea concrete with like reinforced steel mesh.

[00:46:14] Bret: It was like a civil engineer student.Like his senior project was designed my kitchen countertop. This thing was sotough. We were beating on it. Crowbars were trying to cut it, grind it out. Itwas insane, but Daniel just, I mean, I don't know where he gets the time, butif, if a friend needs help, he's there, I've always admired that about you.

[00:46:38] Bret: So I'm sitting right next to you. Idon't know why I'm talking to you. Like you're out in podcast space somewhere.Um, yeah. Just want to share both of those stories. Um,

[00:46:51] Andrew: Bread. These were two kind of storiesyou can't talk. So

[00:46:55] Bret: No. I'm your biggest opinion? I'm hereon my own. No, uh, no payments necessarily. No, for seriously guys. I.

[00:47:04] Andrew: Shalome so let me just startrelistening or catching up on episodes. And she's going to just a hundredpercent not believe me that we didn't just hire you to come hang out and talkabout a little about us at the end, but even hearing this, she's gonna be like,I know you said that. Try and throw me off the trail, but I know, I know whatyou

[00:47:21] Bret: my integrity is in check

[00:47:24] Andrew: Thank you for the kind words.

[00:47:26] Bret: I'm still going to go smoke Daniel andtwo K right after we deal with this podcast,

[00:47:32] Andrew: Yes break

[00:47:34] Andrew: his soul.

[00:47:36] Bret: in the game. Whether, you know, BenSimmons, Luca, I don't know, just destroy them while telling them, Hey, you'rea great friend and I appreciate you.

[00:47:49] Andrew: but I will make you cry. Tears ofanguish. Well, Brett, thank you for the stories. I am thrilled to see where weend [00:48:00] up at the end of this month withour coding challenge. And, uh, hopefully you don't have any more, really nicekind, you know, tear welling stories about Daniel and I, and have

[00:48:10] Daniel: oh, I, I think, I think I've decidedin this moment that Andrew, we have to come into the next episode and we'rejust going to share Brett stories. And so,

[00:48:17] Bret: yeah.

[00:48:19] Andrew: I like that plan, as long as I get totalk about his exceptional physique and

[00:48:26] Daniel: I, I expect nothing else. If, if, if,if Andrew is telling a story about another man, that's almost certain whereit's,

[00:48:36] Andrew: Absolutely.

[00:48:36] Bret: we're talking

[00:48:37] Andrew: that's what I like

[00:48:38] Bret: if that's what we're going to talk about

[00:48:39] Andrew: real is every time we.

[00:48:40] Bret: I'm going to have that thing on repeat.I'm going to listen to it every night.

[00:48:43] Bret: Just you talking about how awesome Iare. Yeah, I'll be all about it.

[00:48:49] Andrew: Anytime we talk about like ourweights, we're moving Daniel, you know, I'm like close to Daniel, somedirection or other, I think he's like, oh, by the way, Brett did this. I'mlike, no, that's

[00:49:00] Bret: Yeah, I promise you're out lifting meright now, but I'm coming back. I'm on the mint. I'm on the mint.

[00:49:07] Andrew: yeah, give it a month and you'll befine. Well guys, we will, uh, wrap this episode up to everybody listening. Thiswas a sequel to the start of our challenge. So if you

[00:49:20] Daniel: want you

[00:49:20] Bret: to know it.

[00:49:24] Andrew: I didn't dang it. You know what y'allcan do the next step. So I'm done. Oh, to everybody else listening. I hateponds. I'm sorry for that. But, uh, yeah, we are thrilled that you guys cameand joined us. Brett, thank you for hopping on with us. Uh, Daniel, I'm goingto kick your butt SQL, so Tila another 15 days or so guys, we will have anotherepisode for you.

[00:49:50] Andrew: And until then we look forward toconnecting with you.

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