Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

A New Word: Jouska

jouska – a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head – a crisp analysis, a devastating comeback, a cathartic heart-to-heart – which serves as a kind of phycological batting cage that feels far more satisfying than the small-ball strategies of everyday life.

This happens to me all the time. Maybe this is something I should work on in therapy? However, since I try not to should-on-myself, I’ll see if I can reduce this internal dialogue.

Sometimes it’s productive for me, such as the times I’m gaming what questions someone might ask me about a presentation or how I will pitch something in a meeting. In these cases, running through the “ideal” conversation in my head is good initial prep.

However. I sometimes have this crazy hypothetical conversation in my head when someone has upset or offended me. I’m sure “I’m right”, and I work through all the great things I would say and how I’d show the other person they are wrong.

Things never work out that way, and I hope I find ways to engage in less jouska.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

June 2, 2023
Summit Launch Pricing Ends June 7

The PASS Data Community Summit is back in Seattle this November, the 14-17, 2023. It’s in person only, and if you can come, you should register today. Launch pricing is discounted and ends next week, June 7.

Complete pricing is on the site, but next week the prices rise, not only for the event, but the pre-cons as well. $500 for a pre-con is a great price, and it’s not something you see from many of the experts when they run private training. The conference is also 30% off now, so let your boss know now is the time to register.

You can see the pre-cons listed, and a number of sessions on the schedule as well. There is a lot of learning and more to come. This isn’t a complete list of sessions as the volunteers on the program committee are still making their final decisions.

If you need to make a case for your employer, there is some great information on the site about what you can learn and why it’s worth attending. The networking alone, which let’s you meet and talk with experts, can be worth a lot later. One support call and the time spent could be avoided with a new colleague that you can query.

I hope to see many of you there. I don’t know if I’m speaking, but I am going and helping run the event. Come to Seattle this fall (and SQL Saturday Oregon the weekend before) and grow your career and get excited about being a data professional.

June 1, 2023
Flyway with Multiple Folders
A customer asked about how they could organize their migration scripts in different ways to manage them and worried about it being complex. I decided to test a few things. This post looks at using multiple folders for scripts.

Setup

Flyway is controlled by a number of options. These can be in a configuration file or they can be passed into the command line. I’m lazy, and I like things self-contained, so I tend to drop things into the flyway.conf file and specify this in the command line.

I’m also lazy about command lines, so I created a fw.cmd file with this in it:

flyway migrate -configFiles=”./flyway.conf”

Then I set up a few folders on my system. These were subfolders in a repo called SQL1, SQL2, SQL2. I know, I’m not creative. Here are the folders I set up. SQL1 has 3 scripts, each containing a CREATE TABLE statement. In this case, I am creating Table01, Table03, and Table04.

I do something similar in SQL2, with table Table02, Table10, and Table11.

SQL3 gets the 5th and 6th tables.

I did this to check order of operations, as well as using multiple folders. For reference, each file looks similar to this, with numbers changed:

I then edited my flyway.conf file. You can name this differently, you just need to pass the appropriate file to flyway when you execute it. By default, flyway.conf is looked for. I changed the variable for flyway.locations to be a comma separated list. In my case, I entered this:
```
flyway.locations=filesystem:sql1, filesystem:sql2, filesystem:sql3
```
Make sure you uncomment the # from the line.

Once this was done, I created an empty database, called foldertest. I then ran my fw command and saw this:

Success, with all my tables created.

Flyway is set up to search the locations path and load the files and execute them. You can organize your scripts into different subfolders if you want to, and flyway will sort out the ordering, if you’ve named them correctly.
May 31, 2023
Migrating from EverNote to Joplin
Recently I got a message that my Evernote subscription was going up. It’s been a $3 a month service, but moving to $4 for me. From USD$35 to USD$50 a year. Not a big change, but a little annoying to me. I have a few reasons, outlined below, but this post is mainly describing the process of moving my data.

Setting up Joplin is easy. You download the app, install it, and then (optionally) connect it to Dropbox, where it adds itself as an app in the /apps folder.

Export and Import

I can easily export a notebook in Evernote to their ENEX format. I do this by right clicking a notebook and selecting Export notebook.

This asks me how to store the output. I get a single file, pick a name/location and this creates a file.

Once this is done, in the Joplin desktop app, I have a few choices. I pick ENEX and then the type, select the file, and things import.

I tried HTML, but got a mess.

If I could edit in the right pane, this would be OK, but I have to edit in the source pane, which is annoying. I know HTML, but don’t want to write in it.

Instead, I picked markdown, which gives me a better view.

I have perhaps a few thousand notes, but really only about 12 notebooks. Since I can export 12 times and import 12 times, this is easy.

I then have all my notes in a new app, where I can sync them between desktop, mobile, and the iPad in the kitchen.

Note I’ll spend a couple weeks working in Joplin and see what I think.

Why Leave Evernote?

Evernote has continued to expand their capabilities, which I get. As a software service, they want to keep growing and attracting more customers and providing more features.

However, for me, I want to simply take notes. I almost never include images, web clips, etc. Instead, I like simple text and quick software. I want to make notes and save them, syncing across devices. To me, I need a glorified way of capturing text files and moving them between machines.

While Evernote has worked well, they’ve done some things that make this less ergonomic for me. Specifically:
- They add a div tag that notes this item was clipboard’d, which is perpetually annoying. I also copy/paste often as this is my writing tool and they add some markup in HTML, which I then have to remove.
- New notes mean I have to select if this is a note, a task, or something. One extra, very, very annoying click.
- Their navigation options are clunky and slow on mobile/tablet.
- Their UX has me constantly clicking from the top to the bottom to the top of the screen.
- They’ve become more chatty, and single-threaded with more lags. Something I find annoying.
They have also deprecated the Plus subscription, which is simple.

I decided to try Joplin, which I found in this PC Mag article. Joplin is an open source app, and if I keep using it, I’ll donate some money to the developer. I don’t mind paying for software, but I need something simple.

If this doesn’t work, I have other options. I might just create a private GH repo and use folders to organize text files. That’s about what I need.

I can also renew Evernote for a year and kick the can and hope they don’t try to force me into the $12/mo subscription.

I know lots of people love OneNote, but I find it overkill and too annoying.
May 30, 2023