Prompt Requests

Posted on March 30, 2026 by way0utwest

One of the challenges of AI-assisted coding agents is that they tend to produce A LOT of code. Even in refactoring or migration changes, the AIs can work quickly and generate such a volume of code that the process starts to become overwhelming. For pull requests, for CI/CD build systems, and certainly for human reviewers, they can be overwhelmed. This can become a real problem with OSS projects, where submissions can grow exponentially to the point that maintainers stop looking at pull requests. I suspect the same thing might happen in corporate repositories when lots of developers can refactor or submit huge amounts of code produced by AI agents in a fraction of the time it took a year ago.

I was listening to an interview with an experienced software developer and OSS project maintainer who said that he preferred getting a “prompt request” that contained a description of a problem and the specification for a solution that he could submit to his own LLM to get the code. Rather than use an AI to review a code in a PR written by a human or AI agent, a great prompt that can communicates the problem and solution is preferred.

That’s a fascinating idea to me. Specify what you want and let the code owners send it to an AI and get a code response whose quality and focus they can decide to implement, based on their own context provided to an LLM (standards, style, patterns, etc.)

Of course, for open source projects, perhaps the maintainer doesn’t want to spend time managing AI agents or working through quality, but this does allow them to focus on the idea being suggested rather than attempting to review code, test it, judge the quality, and perhaps request changes from the submitter. They can take your idea and implement it. If it’s a simple fix, even better, as the maintainer might get quick help from an AI, using the style of code they are used to (their own).

Software engineering is changing a lot in the age of AI, and this seems to be one of the more interesting things I’ve seen suggested. Not YOLO or vibe-coding, but rather a prompt that suggests the idea and turns contributors into a specification written for the robot coder.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

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Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger

Posted on March 30, 2026 by way0utwest

I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try and answer it myself. I assumed this would be easy, and it was, but I used some AI help to make it very quick to get the value and learn something.

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

Checking for Sequences

I know I’ve done some testing lately with sequences for a customer, so I decided to ask Prompt AI to help. I connected to a database and asked this question after clicking ALT+Z.

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I got this response, which I executed before accepting the code. One thing I like about SQL Prompt is I can execute code and then adjust my prompt (or paste in an error). As you can see, I have 3 sequences in this database. I get a bunch of the meta data, including the current_value.

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However, is that the next value or the last one? It could be interpreted multiple ways. I could look this up, but I decided to ask again. I accepted the code, then wrote a quick SQL statement to get the next value. If you’ve never done this, you might not know how sequences work, which is a different issue. In my case, a “se” tab, “ne” tab “i” got e this code. I then asked to find this.

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SQL Prompt AI returned this query, which gets me the current_value, but I know that. I decided to ask for an explanation rather than Google or work my way through MSLearn.

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The explanation is good. It’s not the current value + 1 it’s the current value + increment, which is a subtlety that some people might miss.

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Let’s test this. I wrote some code and then executed it. I get 17, which makes sense. The current value (seen above) is 15 and the increment is 2.

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Problem solved. This short session likely will help me remember this detail for future code (or prompts).

SQL New Blogger

This post took me about 8 minutes to setup the code, capture the images, and write this up. I’ve done a lot of these, but I showed how to investigate a question, use AI for help, and then make sure the AI is actually giving me something good.

You could write these types of posts and show your fluency with both data engineering and AI assistance. Take a minute and start writing some blogs that showcase how your skills and career are growing.

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Is Your Time "Free"?

Posted on March 27, 2026 by way0utwest

We do a lot of research at Redgate Software, often contacting customers or Ambassadors and asking questions, getting feedback, and listening to their challenges or criticisms. We take that information and it helps guide us when we build the tools that help you in your job.

Recently, I watched a call with a customer who uses our famous Toolbelt in their job and has for years. In this case, the call was about the value of Flyway and how that might fit in their organization. The person performed a lot of manual work to deploy code changes, and could see the way in which Flyway helps, but wasn’t interested in saving time.

They saw their time as free. I assume their employer felt that way as well.

In my three decades of working in technology, I’ve seen a lot of employees and their management think of their time as free. Management has been happy to have tech workers stay longer at their desk to get things done. How many of you have had to deploy code on nights or weekends?

Perhaps a better question is how many of you have been happy to work nights or weekends? I’ve seen no shortage of IT people volunteer their efforts to work longer or out of hours to get something done. It’s a point of pride or a badge of honor to spend lots of hours working. I know I’ve felt that way in the past. I’m both proud of working 100 hours a week to support a system (for multiple weeks) and saddened that I did that.

I did learn that wanting to overwork myself was a poor idea after spending a year with a blanket and pillow in my desk. I worked overnight or late into the night too many times across a year and eventually decided to look for a new job when I realized that neither my employer nor I was valuing my time.

Many tech people are on salary, which makes it very easy for management to request (or demand) extra hours spent to meet a deadline or minimize the impact on other users who work “normal” hours. This happens to other professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.), but I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

Working long hours, especially during stressful situations, can teach you a lot. It’s an opportunity to grow and improve your career, but it has lots of downsides. Burnout, mistakes, unhappiness and other negative factors can impact your life and work over time. You ought to value your time, and your employer ought to as well. I learned this when a coworker told our boss he was working the problem until 5 and then needed to leave for a family event. He could work later or come in early the next day, but not everyone needed to stay all evening tonight, and he wasn’t going to do so.

Learn to be more efficient, whether that’s in the work you do, or the people you manage. Learning to save time, use tools, share knowledge, and smooth your processes will build a stronger team over time. People will be more focused, more knowledgeable, and able to get more done in less time.

Invest in things that save time. It’s the one resource we can’t get more of, no matter how much we push on people.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

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The Book of Redgate: No Politics

Posted on March 27, 2026 by way0utwest

In today’s world, this might mean something different, but in 2010, we had this value:

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In our context, this was about being open and transparent. This is the text from the facing page:

No gossiping, no intrigue, no pussy-footing around problems and no telling people what you think they want to hear whist privately disagreeing. We will be transparent in our dealings.

In a small company (2010 must have been 200-ish people), this made a lot of sense and I think overall we minimized politics. I don’t know this will ever be a “no politics” world for Redgate or any other, but we were better about publicly disagreeing.

I think we’ve lost a little of this over the years, as I see more people talking a bit inconsistently to smaller, private groups than they do to large ones. I try hard not to do this, though I’m sure my open-ness sometimes rubs people the wrong way.

I’m OK with some conflict. I’m also OK debating and disagreeing about what we do or why/how we do things. I think it’s healthy to do so.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

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