Why Would You Do That? Voice Of The DBA podcast

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<div class="span index">1</div> <span><a class="" data-remote="true" data-type="html" href="/series/all-about-change">All About Change</a></span>

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All About Change

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How do we build an inclusive world? Hear intimate and in-depth conversations with changemakers on disability rights, youth mental health advocacy, prison reform, grassroots activism, and more. First-hand stories about activism, change, and courage from people who are changing the world: from how a teen mom became the Planned Parenthood CEO, to NBA player Kevin Love on mental health in professional sports, to Beetlejuice actress Geena Davis on Hollywood’s role in women’s rights. All About Change is hosted by Jay Ruderman, whose life’s work is seeking social justice and inclusion for people with disabilities worldwide. Join Jay as he interviews iconic guests who have gone through adversity and harnessed their experiences to better the world. This show ultimately offers the message of hope that we need to keep going. All About Change is a production of the Ruderman Family Foundation. Listen and subscribe to All About Change wherever you get podcasts. https://allaboutchangepodcast.com/

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Why Would You Do That?

about a year ago 3:28

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MP3•Laman utama episod

Kandungan disediakan oleh Steve Jones. Semua kandungan podcast termasuk episod, grafik dan perihalan podcast dimuat naik dan disediakan terus oleh Steve Jones atau rakan kongsi platform podcast mereka. Jika anda percaya seseorang menggunakan karya berhak cipta anda tanpa kebenaran anda, anda boleh mengikuti proses yang digariskan di sini https://ms.player.fm/legal.

I was listening to someone at Microsoft talk about their product recently. I can't disclose which one it was, but lots of people use this product and are impacted by changes. The particular thing that caught my attention was that the presenter noted there was a breaking change in the new version for some people. This wasn't a huge change or one that would affect a lot of people, but it was a breaking change for a few.

Another attendee asked this question: I would tend to do xxx instead of what you showed, so why would you do this?

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317 episod

#Tech #Sqlserver #Steve Jones #Data Science #Science #News #Tech News #Database

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Why Would You Do That?

Voice of the DBA

49 subscribers

published about a year ago

Kongsi

MP3•Laman utama episod

Kandungan disediakan oleh Steve Jones. Semua kandungan podcast termasuk episod, grafik dan perihalan podcast dimuat naik dan disediakan terus oleh Steve Jones atau rakan kongsi platform podcast mereka. Jika anda percaya seseorang menggunakan karya berhak cipta anda tanpa kebenaran anda, anda boleh mengikuti proses yang digariskan di sini https://ms.player.fm/legal.

I was listening to someone at Microsoft talk about their product recently. I can't disclose which one it was, but lots of people use this product and are impacted by changes. The particular thing that caught my attention was that the presenter noted there was a breaking change in the new version for some people. This wasn't a huge change or one that would affect a lot of people, but it was a breaking change for a few.

Another attendee asked this question: I would tend to do xxx instead of what you showed, so why would you do this?

Read the rest of Why Would You Do That?

… continue reading

317 episod

#Tech #Sqlserver #Steve Jones #Data Science #Science #News #Tech News #Database

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Interview Tips 3:26

7 hours ago3:26

3:26

When is the last time you interviewed for a new position? It could have been at a new company, or maybe you had an interview was for a different position inside your existing company. Perhaps you needed to talk to a manager internally for a new project. I've tried to treat all my one-on-one meetings or reviews as interviews since I'm usually trying to impress someone enough to get a raise or promotion. Preparing for something you do rarely is hard. Most of us have interviews very infrequently, and we often aren't prepared to impress others. If your partner or a close friend is also a business person, perhaps they can help you get ready, but I've found that most people struggle to help others prepare as they don't know how themselves. Read the rest of Interview Tips…

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Is SQL Server Feature Complete? 2:24

2 days ago2:24

2:24

I heard Brent Ozar recently talked a bit about the SQL Server platform and its future. He also mentioned that Fabric has distracted the data platform team and it isn't a great product. I tend to agree, and I see too many bugs, holes, and problems. However at the end of this short snippet, he talks about SQL Server with an interesting comment. Is SQL Server feature complete? Read the rest of Is SQL Server Feature Complete?…

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50 Years of Microsoft 3:19

5 days ago3:19

3:19

I get the Gates Notes email periodically and I always find it interesting to read. Like Bill Gates or not, he is a very smart individual and has thoughtful things to say. Even when I don't always agree with him, I enjoy hearing his view and have enjoyed seeing him deliver presentations. In fact, one of my career highlights was at SQL Saturday #175 - Fargo , held at the MS campus. Bill Gates was speaking to employees that day and we were allowed to watch the Q&A from the balcony. Later, I saw him start to leave and stop by a sign. He asked someone about SQL Saturday. When they explained the idea for free conferences, he said "that's cool." One of the recent emails talked about the 50th anniversary of Microsoft , with the original source code available for a BASIC interpreter. It's an interesting read to me, since I learned BASIC first (and a little assembler) on an Apple II and a TRS-80. I didn't start a company, but I certainly appreciate the excitement of tackling a programming challenge back then when memory and disk were in short supply. Most of my early programming tasks had me worried about how much memory and disk I was using, trying desperately to minimize both. Read the rest of 50 Years of Microsoft…

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The Return to the Office Debate 3:13

7 days ago3:13

3:13

At the end of last year, I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. We were chatting and this person mentioned that they were looking for a new job. They had been laid off and needed something. This is someone with a lot of experience and skill, so I wasn't worried for their career or future. At the time, they mentioned they had gotten an introduction and interest from Amazon, but they weren't interested in a position because of the return-to-the-office (RTO) mandate that Amazon was implementing. I was recently chatting with another friend at a different company. This person manages a tech team, and was looking to hire another data engineer, but was told they could only hire in a certain city (City A) in the US. In this case, it was the city with their main office. They have offices in a few cities, and a large one in City B, but the organization has been thinking of their own RTO plans and has limited hiring. My friend is now wondering if they need to consider moving to City A (not likely) or find a new job. They don't want to have to go to the office every day in City B. Read the rest of The Return to the Office Debate…

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Staying Employed 2:32

9 days ago2:32

2:32

The revolution with GenAI has been quite the ride since 2023 and quite a few people have been concerned that their employment status might be in jeopardy. I can certainly understand that, especially in light of the tight budgets, widespread layoffs , and executive views on AI technologies . There was an article recently talking about AI taking over some jobs with a few tips on how to stay employed. While tech workers weren't mentioned as being vulnerable, repetitive data-heavy jobs, such as data entry clerks, telemarketers, and cashiers were. That last one is interesting. Lots of companies have tried to use automated checkout stations, but this hasn't necessarily eliminated cashiers. Maybe there are fewer, but lots of companies in the US have rolled back some of these efforts as fraud, mistakes, and slower checkouts have been an issue. Read the rest of Staying Employed…

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Database First or Application First 2:48

14 days ago2:48

2:48

One of the challenges in software development is coordinating database and application changes when one depends on the other. I find many software development teams struggle with this, especially in today's environments when no one wants to take a system offline. While some companies can stage and manage deployments, many of us find our systems need to keep running 24x7 with minimal outages (if any). Lots of you work in environments where your software is changing on a regular basis. Plenty of you will either be developing those changes, or managing the systems to which those changes are deployed. You likely will be coordinating with other people (in either case) to deploy a software artifact (C#, Java, Python, etc.) and a set of database changes in order for your clients to use whatever new functionality is being delivered. Read the rest of Database First or Application First…

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How Much AI Code Would You Use? 3:18

16 days ago3:18

3:18

I saw an article recently that a quarter of the Y Combinator startups have 95% of the code in their repos being AI generated . The article notes that if no other startups had any AI generated code (no idea the likelihood here, then about 24% of their code for startups is GenAI written. 24% Is that high or low? If you think about all the code you've written in the last year, how much of it could be reasonably generated by AI? All the queries, schema changes, test code, dummy data insertions, refactoring to add a column to a table or result set. Could it be AI written? Read the rest of How Much AI Code Would You Use?…

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Part-Time DBAs 2:55

21 days ago2:55

2:55

Some of you reading this are database administrators (DBAs) who manage systems as their full-time job. Others of you might be developers, analytics people, or someone else who has another job, but you get stuck with managing the database somehow. I've seen a receptionist and a dental hygienist act in this role. We may call you the accidental DBAs, though that doesn't imply you are good or bad at managing databases. I got into this line of work as an accidental DBA who was also a developer. No matter what your job title, my guess is that you aren't over-staffed at your organization. Likely you wish you had one (or more) more person to help keep up with the work. It seems that we never have enough time to get everything done in a week. And that's with a full staff. What do you do when someone is sick or goes on vacation? If you're like me, you get further behind and feel extra stress while your coworker is out of the office. Read the rest of Part-Time DBAs…

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Using Feature Flags 3:03

23 days ago3:03

3:03

The use of feature flags in software development has become more and more prevalent over time, especially as teams move to DevOps-style development with frequent releases. I've often thought that using feature flags allows technical people to separate out the deployment of some feature or change from the release of that to users. There are a number of articles on this style of work ( feature flag driven development , Why Use Feature Flags? ) as well as a discussion at Reddit . I am a big believer in feature flags helping with improving your software in many ways. These articles (and others) highlight the advantages that a software organization gains by using feature flags. Failed releases become less of an issue, as the specific change that doesn't work can be turned off. This can even work with databases. I can deploy a database change and at a later time have the code (or new table/column) start being used when a feature flag is set. If there is an issue, I can turn off the feature flag and stop using the code (or populating the schema). I can then clean things up, even saving data before I make a change. Read the rest of Using Feature Flags…

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A Domain for Data 2:28

26 days ago2:28

2:28

A domain is a set of possible values (among other definitions). I use this word a lot in my work, often with a problem domain (the thing you're trying to solve) or the domain of possible values (like the US States and Territories list). That last one is interesting, as this is often the set of data we stick in some reference or lookup table to use in a form on a screen. There is a domain as part of the SQL specification, which I never knew about. I was reading an article from Joe Celko on the CREATE DOMAIN statement . This doesn't exist in SQL Server and T-SQL, but it has been a part of PostgreSQL for quite a few versions. The article talks about the definition of a domain from a few very experienced database design people. Read the rest of A Domain for Data…

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Database DevOps Metrics 3:26

28 days ago3:26

3:26

The DORA organization is dedicated to helping others build software better and faster, at a higher quality, and in a way that is more efficient. They continue to compile and publish the Accelerate State of DevOps report every year, which is a fascinating read. As a part of the report, they have identified four key metrics that identify high performing organizations in terms of software. These are divided into two areas: throughput and stability. Throughput measures are change lead time and deployment frequency. Stability measures are the change fail percentage and failed deployment recovery time. Read the rest of Database DevOps Metrics…

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Is GenAI Coming Faster Than You Think? 3:01

4 weeks ago3:01

3:01

If you're a fan, no. You're chomping at the bit, waiting to get everyone using GenAI models in their work. If you're skeptical, then you might think it's never coming to take your job, be a personal assistant, help you with coding, etc. Pick the task it won't help you with. A more nuanced view, which is similar to mine, is from Kendra Little, in which she says AI will eliminate DBA Jobs Faster Than You Think , I'm not quite as pro-AI as Kendra, mostly because I see so many companies that are slow to change, slow to adopt new tech, slow to adjust their thinking. They just soldier on and keep running their business, as they've been doing for decades. Even when you might make a case for change, or prove it's worthwhile, they just don't spend the time to change. Read the rest of Is GenAI Coming Faster Than You Think?…

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The Inefficiencies of Kubernetes 3:19

5 weeks ago3:19

3:19

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The End of SQL Server 2019 3:35

5 weeks ago3:35

3:35

Well, not really the end. I doubt anyone running SQL Server 2019 is going to stop (or upgrade) just because mainstream support ended. Actually, I wonder how many of you know that SQL Server 2019 passed out of mainstream support on Feb 28, 2025. I do think the 6 or 7 of you running Big Data Clusters likely knew this was the end of any support. I saw a report in the Register on this, which includes a survey of which versions are still running. This is from an IT asset firm and matches Brent Ozar's Population report . 44% of you are running SQL Server 2019, which is the largest percentage. Since there's an additional 32% of you running versions older than 2019, I'm sure that upgrading isn't a priority. Read the rest of The End of SQL Server 2019…

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Monoliths and Microservices 3:35

5 weeks ago3:35

3:35

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More Supply Chain Attacks 3:06

6 weeks ago3:06

3:06

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Lower Your Attack Surface Area 3:08

6 weeks ago3:08

3:08

It's no surprise that our systems are under attack by all sorts of criminals. Some organized, some opportunistic, some just aiming for vandalism. We need to protect our digital systems to prevent issues, and a part of better protection is reducing the number of places that are vulnerable. Those places include databases. This article discusses the rising costs of data breaches and the increased frequency of attacks. It also examines the increasing number of regulations that are demanding proof of stricter security measures. It can be hard enough to defend production systems, let alone protecting dev/test environments. I see an increasing number of organizations that limit access to production systems, even to the point that this impedes some of the daily work habits of technology professionals, but that is probably a good thing. Too many of us are too lax when it comes to security. Read the rest of Lower Your Attack Surface Area…

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Tracking Table Sizes 2:21

8 weeks ago2:21

2:21

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The Job Outlook for Database Professionals 3:34

8 weeks ago3:34

3:34

This is a strange time for many technology professionals and their employment. It seems many organizations have open positions and are struggling to fill those slots with qualified candidates ( one look at this ). At the same time, many other organizations have followed the large technology firms (FAANG, MSFT) and laid off large numbers of their staff in the last year. At the same time, with the hype and rapid growth of GenAI systems, we have companies that are looking to machines to fill some of their labor needs. Salesforce noted that they did not expect to hire more software engineers in 2025 as their plan was to use AI tech to help them write enough code. They've seen productivity gains with AI tech, so they aren't adding more developers. They still need human developers, just not more of them. Read the rest of The Job Outlook for Database Professionals…

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A Poor Data Model 2:57

8 weeks ago2:57

2:57

Recently there was some online complaints about social security numbers (SSNs) in the US being duplicated and re-used by individuals. This is really political gamesmanship, so ignore the political part. Just know that social security numbers appear to be one of the contenders used in many data models. I found a good piece about how SSNs aren't unique, and have a mess of problems. Despite this, many people seem to want to use SSNs as a primary or alternate key in their database systems. They also aren't well secured in many systems, even though we should consider this sensitive PII data. Read the rest of A Poor Data Model…

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Your Biggest Data Model Complaints 1:56

9 weeks ago1:56

1:56

I've been working with databases for a long time and there are no shortage of things I've seen other people do that I don't like. Sometimes I shake my head a little. Sometimes I might groan inwardly (hopefully not aloud), and sometimes I might make an effort to convince someone else to do something differently. Sometimes I'm really annoyed (or angry) and don't even know what to do. Read the rest of Your Biggest Data Model Complaints…

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Why Not Use AI? 3:15

9 weeks ago3:15

3:15

Erin Stellato, a program manager at Microsoft, asked a very interesting question on LinkedIn : "why do you *not* want a Copilot in SSMS?" That got me to stop and think a minute. Why don't we want to use an AI to help us? It's a good question, given the hype and (maybe) potential of the technology. While it might not help you now, or with your specific thing, it might help others, so are there good reasons not to use AI technologies, like the GenAI LLMs? Read the rest of Why Not Use AI?…

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Trust is a Funny Thing 3:08

9 weeks ago3:08

3:08

I caught an article on AI skepticism and there was a point in the article where trust was mentioned. Specifically the reasons that people distrust an AI or tech tool is that it makes a mistake, so they stop using it. A few examples of this were using a writing AI that made a grammar mistake or a GPS routing device that added a wrong detour. In those cases the humans stopped using the assistance of the algorithm because they felt it wasn't trustworthy. What's fascinating to me is that I had this same conversation with a human the day before. Someone mentioned they were working with a group and they misstated something. After that, the group stopped listening to all this person's advice, thinking it was all suspect. Essentially one mistake overrides everything else. Read the rest of Trust is a Funny Thing…

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Moving On After a Technology Fail 5:00

10 weeks ago5:00

5:00

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Is Ransomware Fading? 3:30

10 weeks ago3:30

3:30

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How Much Linux Do You Need? 2:48

11 weeks ago2:48

2:48

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The End of Azure Data Studio 3:14

11 weeks ago3:14

3:14

I don't know how many of you will be disappointed or impacted by this, but Azure Data Studio (ADS) is being retired, as of 6 Feb, 2024. It will be supported for a little over a year, until 28 Feb, 2026. On one hand I'm not surprised, and on the other, I'm a little shocked by this. I have written a number of articles on ADS , and shown how things work, as well as pointed out a number of things that don't work well in the product or its extensions. These pieces have gotten a number of reads, and people have commented on them, so I wonder if there are a lot of you that are upset by this. Is this going to change the way you work? I will say that it will lightly change my work, as I do use ADS to connect to PostgreSQL, but not so much for SQL Server. Read the rest of The End of Azure Data Studio…

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Extended Event Comfort 2:11

11 weeks ago2:11

2:11

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Unreliable Narrators 2:19

12 weeks ago2:19

2:19

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Building a Data Center 3:38

12 weeks ago3:38

3:38

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Words vs Data 2:21

12 weeks ago2:21

2:21

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Data Debt 3:33

13 weeks ago3:33

3:33

I had never heard of data debt until I saw this article on the topic . In reading it, I couldn't help thinking that most everyone has data debt, it creates inefficiencies, and it's unlikely we'll get rid of it. And by the way, it's too late to get this under control. I somewhat dismissed the article when I saw this: "addressing data debt in its early stages is crucial to ensure that it does not become an overwhelming barrier to progress." I know it's a barrier, as I assume most of you also know, but it's also not stopping us. We keep building more apps, databases, and systems, and accruing more data debt. Somehow, most organizations keep running. The description of debt might help here. How many of you have inconsistent data standards, where you might define a data element differently in different databases? Maybe you have duplicated data that is slow to update (think ETL/warehouses), maybe you have different ways of tracking a completed sale in different systems. Maybe you even store dates in different formats (int, string, or something weirder). How many of you lack some documentation on what the columns in your databases mean? Maybe I should ask the reverse, where the few of you who have complete data dictionaries can raise your hands. Read the rest of Data Debt…

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Creating vs. Maintaining 2:39

13 weeks ago2:39

2:39

If your job as a developer or DBA has been like mine, it's a constant stream of requests to change something, often without enough information and short deadlines that create a bit of stress. There's always more work to be done, and while it might be a great job, you're often trying to finish something quickly enough to get to the next thing. In this mode, how often do you think about creating (or modifying) the thing you're working on for today vs maintaining it for tomorrow. In other words, do you consider how easily your work can be understood, is documented, is designed to allow for flexibility, and can be enhanced without many (any?) side effects, or anything else. Read the rest of Creating vs. Maintaining…

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The Era of Cloned Humans 2:54

13 weeks ago2:54

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Can You Become a More Productive Engineer? 3:50

14 weeks ago3:50

3:50

The short answer is of course, most of us can learn and improve our skills to become better developers, engineers, DBAs, etc. While we might not be able to become the 10x engineer that many aspire to be, we can certainly become a better employee inside of an organization. There's a piece on becoming a more effective engineer, which is actually titled know how your org works . It a piece from an engineer that started with a tweet : The text was: You can either complain and pontificate on Twitter on how the tech industry *should* ideally work, or you can learn how your org *really* works and what’s rewarded, and optimize for that. Or quit and find another job. This might sound cynical - but it’s what it is. That sounds a little harsh, but the reality of how your org works or is structured or interacts is a reality. We all have hindsight to look back and wish someone (including us) had written code better. We might be sure if we could change one thing, or add/remove someone else, or make some other change, then things would be better. We might feel that there is a simple solution. Those things might be true, but they aren't the reality of the situation. Read the rest of Can You Become a More Productive Engineer?…

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The AI Budget Assistant 3:30

14 weeks ago3:30

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The Types of Changes 4:00

15 weeks ago4:00

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The Managed Cloud Database Options 3:30

15 weeks ago3:30

3:30

There are many, many choices for cloud database services these days. I would hope everyone is aware of the various IaaS options in public clouds with EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine, and others. These are often the easiest way to move your workload, but you've really just moved a VM from one place to another (likely more expensive) place. For managed databases, there are lots of choices, but you might not be aware of your options. I ran across an article that discusses the various flavors of managed databases in the big three public clouds for SQL Server. In the piece, there is a section that talks about when a managed database makes sense. I like that it discloses the development on a managed service is expensive. Read the rest of The Managed Cloud Database Options…

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Simple(r) Coffee 3:36

15 weeks ago3:36

3:36

Starbucks has too many order combinations. This article about the challenges for their new CEO notes there are over 170,000 combinations of things customers can order. As someone who has visited a store often and stood behind someone placing an order, that sounds like an accurate number. Sometimes I hear people order things to drink that I had no idea were even possible. When there are too many choices, sometimes there can be a delay as the person tries to process the information and make a decision. Some people can't make a decision. Others enjoy the variety and keep making different decisions each time. That's fine if you're visiting a restaurant, but it's less useful if you're building software. Read the rest of Simple(r) Coffee…

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The Lesser Used Functions 2:14

16 weeks ago2:14

2:14

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Adding The Right Value 3:25

16 weeks ago3:25

3:25

I caught this post about a career presentation from Kendra Little and it resonated a bit with me. The summary of the post (it's a bit long) is that there is valuable work that supports and benefits a team of people, called glue work. However, glue work isn't necessarily technical and it isn't necessarily recognized as valuable by management. In fact, it might unintentionally lead you from a career in engineering to one in project management. I haven't been someone who has been marginalized in positions, who has been taken for granted or expected to do certain tasks. I think some people get taken advantage of, and this is especially true for women, who both volunteer more and are volunteered by others more for these tasks. While I have been quick to document decisions or actions, and sometimes help out with project work, I do that in addition to any technical work. I've felt that as a developer, my job is to produce code. If I can help with other things, then I'm a Developer+, but I ultimately know that code my clients can use is what matters. Read the rest of Adding the Right Value…

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The Rise of Data Centers Centers 3:15

16 weeks ago3:15

3:15

For the last few years, we've seen no shortage of cloud migration stories and felt pressure from management who wanted to migrate our systems to the cloud. It seems that almost everyone I speak to has a story of having to move a system out of their owned or leased data center into a public cloud from some vendor. A lot of this is the movement of VMs from one place to another, which has me scratching my head. If we're just running VMs, surely we can do this cheaper in our own data center. Perhaps, though there are a lot of costs to setting up or running a data center, and it's not easy getting a system in place that allows a bit of self-service for our customers. Especially while ensuring that images used are properly patched and secured, while ensuring lots of easy connectivity to storage that can be reconfigured easily. It might not be worth the effort for a few dozen VMs, but if you have hundreds of systems, maybe it is. Read the rest of The Rise of Data Centers Centers…

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The Learning Plan for 2025 4:04

17 weeks ago4:04

4:04

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Comforting Habits 3:19

19 weeks ago3:19

3:19

I was chatting with a friend recently about routines and some of the helpful or silly things we do. I mentioned that when I played adult baseball, we often had Sunday morning games and a routine of mine was to drive to town, stop at a 7-11, and get a large cup of coffee and an apple fritter. It was a comforting habit that I still have today, often stopping when I have a morning flight to do the same thing in the way to the airport. Only in Denver though, not when I'm flying out of other cities and returning home. Read the rest of Comforting Habits…

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Big Data or Small Data 3:15

19 weeks ago3:15

3:15

I went to San Francisco for Small Data SF , a conference sponsored by Mother Duck. The premise of the event was that smaller sets of data are both very useful and prevalent. The manifesto speaks to me, as I am a big fan of smaller sets of data for sure. I also think that most of the time we can use less data than we think we need, especially when it's recent data. That often is more relevant and we end up with contorted queries that try to weight new or old data differently to reflect this. Maybe the best line for me is this one: Bigger data has an opportunity cost: Time. Read the rest of Big Data or Small Data…

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Learning to Grind 3:39

19 weeks ago3:39

3:39

When I was younger, I had a variety of jobs, but in most of the positions I had to work hard for stretches. Really hard, as in more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. Often as I was starting a new position, it took some time for me to develop some understanding, some skill, and some muscle memory. In some jobs, especially in restaurants, I also had to build the physical skills to be on my feet for many hours. In technology, I've often found myself unsure of how to approach a new position, aware I had knowledge gaps about how things worked, and often, I was naïve or ignorant of some piece of technology my employer used. Even at jobs where I started as a developer or DBA on a known platform (ASP or SQL Server), I sometimes encountered some aspects of the technology that I hadn't used in the past (like clustering). Read the rest of Learning to Grind…

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The AI/Human Spectrum 4:26

20 weeks ago4:26

4:26

I was asked this question recently: is it more likely that AI will replace humans or assist them in their work? It's a good question. If you think about the way AI is being hyped in 2024, many people think AI is, or will soon be, replacing people and we need less of them in work. I guess the simplified view is that AI can do the jobs of many people, but I'm not sure the world is that simple. What I think is more likely is that AI becomes a lever that assists a few people in getting more work done and potentially replacing other, less knowledgable humans. Read the rest of The AI/Human Spectrum…

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Continuous Learning 3:23

20 weeks ago3:23

3:23

It seems there's quite a dichotomy in the technology workforce. On one hand I hear about the Great Resignation where many employees are leaving their jobs because of RTO (return to office) mandates or some other dissatisfaction with their job. On the other, I've seen quite a few people who were laid off and are struggling to find new positions. On the third hand, there is no shortage of companies who report they are struggling to find and hire talented people for some positions. I don't quite know what to think, but I do know that employment seems to be harder to come by. If you are looking for a job, I believe you need your own sustainable learning plan. If your organization can't find qualified talented staff, then the organization definitely needs a continuous learning plan. Read the rest of Continuous Learning…

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Why Would You Do That? 3:28

20 weeks ago3:28

3:28

I was listening to someone at Microsoft talk about their product recently. I can't disclose which one it was, but lots of people use this product and are impacted by changes. The particular thing that caught my attention was that the presenter noted there was a breaking change in the new version for some people. This wasn't a huge change or one that would affect a lot of people, but it was a breaking change for a few. Another attendee asked this question: I would tend to do xxx instead of what you showed, so why would you do this? Read the rest of Why Would You Do That?…

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Distributed Monoliths 3:07

21 weeks ago3:07

3:07

I was watching a video called Microservices are Technical Debt . In it, the person being interviewed said that a lot of people really have a distributed monolith. That caught my eye since I've worked with a number of customers who are trying to adopt microservice architectures for their applications. I think this is less a performance/scaling choice than a reworking of their software development teams, and I'm not sure they will end up with a better system. What is a distributed monolith ? I am not an expert, but this appears to be a place where all the services still depend on each other. For example, I might have a service getting user profile info that an app calls, with another service getting previous orders, and a third service that returns inventory. In a monolith, if any of these are down, the others don't work. In a distributed monolith, these might be built independently, but perhaps the core app/web page still requires all these to be working to show the user something. Read the rest of Distributed Monoliths…

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Reducing the Cycle Time 3:39

21 weeks ago3:39

3:39

There are lots of software development methodologies. This page lists a few, among them waterfall, agile, iterative, rapid, and more. What's been interesting to me is that the process of deciding what to code and then whether it works doesn't change much between different ways of building software. Instead, the cycle time between when we ask a client what to do and when we deliver it changes. The more agile/lean we are, the lower the cycle time. The more waterfall-ish, the larger the cycle time. I guess that analysis and breakdown of problems into work also changes, as the scope in modern DevOps styles of development is smaller (more contained) than in waterfall. Read the rest of Reducing the Cycle Time…

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Doing a Little Research 2:58

21 weeks ago2:58

2:58

I've been very pleased with the direction of SSMS the last few years. As it's been separated from SQL Server releases and gets updated more often, I think the changes from v17 though v20 have been improvements. There are still issues, but it's been better. Now we finally have SSMS moving to a modern shell with the v21 preview and I'm excited to see how this changes the future of our tooling. However, the PM for SSMS, Erin Stellato, posted a note on LinkedIn recently asking why people don't read documentation. She also asks what you want to see in 21, so respond if you think there are holes in the SSMS docs. I think this post came about because of many responses that came from people who clearly hadn't read some documentation. Read the rest of Doing a Little Research…

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Have Grace 1:44

22 weeks ago1:44

1:44

Thanksgiving is tomorrow in the US and it is supposed to be a holiday when we give thanks for our blessings in life. My wife usually has everyone in our family tell what they are thankful for this year. I also see many people posting things they are grateful for during the month of December. Last month I was lucky enough to have dinner with Bob Ward and we were talking about some of the things we'd seen in travels, often some stressful times for ourselves or others. We've seen many people get upset or angry or have some other reaction. Both of us have some empathy for others, recognizing that we don't really know their history or experiences, and it doesn't make sense for us to get upset. If we knew those things, we might better understand the reaction that someone displays to a situation. Read the rest of Have Grace…

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Computer Algebra 3:31

22 weeks ago3:31

3:31

I was a bit of a math nerd in high school and college. Some of you might have been as well, but I took advanced math all through high school, culminating with AP Calculus as a senior with 11 other kids (of about 320). In college, I started with Calculus III freshman year and went on to take 7 more semesters of various high level maths. One of those classes included analyzing data with linear regression, which we did with hand calculators and formulae. At SQL Saturday Pittsburgh 2024 , I watched a talk from Jeff Moden on linear regression. It was a trip down memory lane, with Jeff explaining how the process worked, the flaws, and how this technique could be used to do some predictions on data stored in SQL Server. It was a great session on the topic, but I liked that Jeff showed how you can use SQL Server to do various math calculations that might be useful to analyze data. I see applications sometimes programming various formulas, but I don't often see people doing this in database queries. Read the rest of Computer Algebra…

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New SQL Server 2022 Functions 3:03

23 weeks ago3:03

3:03

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How Do You Patch 100 Database Servers? 2:55

23 weeks ago2:55

2:55

In most of the organizations I've worked for or consulted with, patching was always a challenge. Patching hasn't usually been given a priority and is often skipped when operations staff is busy. This has resulted in lots of un-patched, or slowly patched systems. I assume this is one reason Microsoft continues to release RTM-GDR patches because some people won't patch at all unless there are critical fixes. I also know that much of IT management sees patching systems like patching parking lots. Needs to be done, but tomorrow, after we do other important work today. Read the rest of How Do You Patch 100 Database Servers?…

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Do You Want a Microsoft Solution? 3:52

24 weeks ago3:52

3:52

Microsoft constantly releases new features and products in the data platform space. Many of us have seen the SQL Server product grow in new ways, some of which are very useful to us. As an example the changes from log shipping to clustering to Availability Groups has improved our HA/DR options as well as the capabilities available to us in different situations. With that in mind, I saw someone recently that wanted to deploy SQL Server on Kubernetes, which is something that could be a very interesting way of managing your different systems. However, this individual wanted to know when Microsoft would release their own supported solution with a Microsoft operator to manage the instance. There is guidance from Microsoft , but no official operator. Read the rest of Do You Want a Microsoft Solution?…

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Separate Reads 2:46

24 weeks ago2:46

2:46

Recently I was watching a presentation on how to scale performance in your SQL Server environment and one of the suggestions was setting up Availability Groups (AGs) and having read-intent connections that would query the secondary and not the primary. It's not a bad idea, and the SQL Native Client (and other drivers) support this and make it easy to implement. The pattern of using multiple connections in an application, one for reads and one for writes, has been suggested often. However, in practice, I've rarely seen this work. Apparently having a connection variable, named dbConn, for writes and a second one, named dbConnReadOnly, for reads is too complex for most developers or teams. Read the rest of Separate Reads…

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Time to Change Your Team 2:40

24 weeks ago2:40

2:40

I assume most of you work with others in a team. Even if you are the data specialist and others work on different technologies, you still have a team. How long has your current team been together in this form? Have you had a stable team that might have grown, but the rest of the individuals and roles/responsibilities stay the same? Or has your team changed makeup, roles, responsibilities, or something else? I don't see a lot of organizations that change their team structures often. There may be people who come and go from a team, but the core structure remains the same. Even when your company might reorganize a bit, often it's teams that shuffle between managers, but mostly remain the same. There certainly are exceptions, and some large orgs (Microsoft, Amazon, etc.) regularly shuffle lots of people around, but I'm not sure the teams change their makeup or their mandate much. Read the rest of Time to Change Your Team…

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Technology Fears 3:31

25 weeks ago3:31

3:31

Recently I had a friend traveling who is not very tech savvy. This person has traveled before and has a routine, but in this case, they were struggling to get an airline's mobile app to work. They also struggled with the website, and just before the trip, they were thinking to cancel because they didn't have a ticket in their hand before driving to the airport. This turned out to be a login issue, and between friends and the airline's customer service, they were able to print out a ticket at home and take it in hand to the airport. Read the rest of Technology Fears…

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