Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

Friday Flyway Tips–Navigating in Flyway Desktop

Flyway Desktop changed the navigation and a few people were surprised. I was as well, so I decided to do a short tip on the changes.

This is part of a series of posts on Flyway.

The Old Flyway Desktop

If you’ve been following these tips, or worked with the Flyway Enterprise system, you’ve encountered Flyway Desktop, and you might have seen something that looked like this, with the navigation across the top of the screen. We see four “tabs”, called Schema model,
Generate Migrations, Migrations, and Version Control:

As part of a design refresh, we moved the version control tab to the right side as a bar, which shrinks it, but also gives information while a developer is working. I covered this in a previous tip. You can see that design below.

We weren’t done and I was surprised how quickly we made another change.

Flyway Desktop v7

This was actually in v7.0.5, which released Jan 11. We moved all the tabs to the side, though this time the first three moved to the left. As you can see below, I have the migrations tab selected and the nav is on the side panel.

The same three tabs are there, but now on the left, and what’s more, I can shrink this panel to a bar, which gives me more room in which to see code and work with my changes. The VCS tab is still on the right, with icons to let me know when I have changes to push, pull, or fetch.

Summary

This might not seem like much, but it’s a nice visual change and it gives us the ability to add more features in tabs, without running out of room or squeezing things at the top. Over time, a few more pieces of functionality will appear here as we continue to expand the capabilities of the tool.

Try Flyway Desktop out today. If you haven’t worked with Flyway Desktop, download it today. There is a free version that organizes migrations and paid versions with many more features.

Video Walkthrough

I made a quick video showing this as well. You can watch it below, or check out all the Flyway videos I’ve added:

February 2, 2024
How Often Do You Update SSMS?

I got a message recently that SSM S19.3 is out. I am wary of major versions, especially with a few add-in tools, but I have tended to try and update SSMS regularly when it patches, which is about once a quarter. As I checked my desktop, I saw I was still on 19.1 (my laptop was 19.2), so I downloaded and updated both machines.

I wonder what the rest of you do. I know many of you have corporate rules and restrictions and you may not be able to update regularly, but in many places, I’ve worked, once software was installed, I could update it. Are you doing the same thing out there? Let us know in the comments, or better yet, include the version you are running.

Some of you might use VS Code or Azure Data Studio as well, which have more of a nag screen to update. I find myself updating ADS/VS Code more often, though not with every version. I tend to prefer software working and am less interested in gambling on potential issues unless there is a bug I need fixed.

My work at Redgate brings me into contact with lots of customers, and I find a number of them view software like I do. They prefer working versions over the latest and greatest. In fact, we’ve added options to many of our products so people who want the latest have a frequent updates channel. Others can get notified less often; we even have a 7/14/28 day switch in Flyway Desktop.

I tend to prefer updating a week or so after most releases, though depending on how busy I am, I might end up a week or two after the next release. I want to see if there are reports of issues or problems before I upgrade. However, even that is more often than what I hear from many others. Lots of people want to upgrade every few months, often quarterly, to minimize any disruptions to daily work.

Are you the same? I’m interested in SSMS, but what about other tools as well? Is this the same for patches of Windows/SQL Server? Do you upgrade some software more or less often? Let me know today with a comment in the discussion.

Steve Jones

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

February 2, 2024
A New Word: Tarrion

tarrion – n. an odd interval of blankness you feel after something big happens to you bt before you feel the resulting emotional reaction – stunned by a sudden loss, a stroke of luck, or an unexpected visitor – like those tension-filled seconds between a flash of lightning and the thunderclap that follows..

I don’t have a lot of big things happening in my life. No great joys, but not great sorrows (usually). However, I know I’ve had this a few times. I had one last year, which I don’t want to disclose, but I got some news and I missed the next few sentences. I was stunned, and didn’t know how to react. A few seconds later the emotion hit me.

This seems like a very common reaction to big news, and while I appreciate the excitement for some things, I’m glad I don’t feel tarrion too often with sad news.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

February 2, 2024
Another Fun Photoshoot
It’s been three weeks in a row I’ve been in the Austin airport. First was corporate annual kickoff, which was a lot of fun seeing and chatting with people that I don’t often get to spend time with. This week was THAT Conference in Round Rock. However, last week was the most interesting.

Our Database DevOps Rocks tour was very successful last year, and we decided to do another one in 2024. I went to Austin last year for a photoshoot with the van, and ended up with some fun pics. One of my favorites is here:

The 2024 Tour

Rather than a van, we wanted to go bigger this year. Someone proposed a plane at Summit, and I thought that was interesting. I wasn’t sure this would work, but it did. I flew to Austin last week with Grant for a quick shoot.

Someone is working on post production of pictures, and some video. We shot a lot of stuff for promo videos and commercials, so the final results will be different, but here are a few fun ones.

Grant and I sat in a couple old first-class Delta seats in the hanger.

We were given the jackets and sunglasses for props, which was fun. We took turns changing them. Here’s Grant modeling the jacket in front of the plane with our photographer giving him instructions.

I even got to walk on the runway, which was slightly unnerving. However, it was super foggy, so no planes were coming or going. Still, it was neat to stand out there. Something I haven’t done.

I’m looking forward to the final props, and also the tour. I’m only on part of it, but there a few places scheduled for me:
- San Jose
- Atlanta
- London
- Chicago
- Brisbane
- Sydney
- Melbourne
Maybe a few more, but we’ll see.
February 2, 2024