Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • The Programming Languages We Use

    Many of you reading this probably work primarily in SQL. Even if you are a developer whose main language is something else, you write a lot of SQL. Even if you have an ORM writing the SQL that goes into production, I bet a lot of you are writing queries against a database to check that the data coming back in your application is correct.

    As for me, I mostly work in SQL, with PowerShell and Python being second and third. I tried R for a while, but I think Python does everything R can do and it’s much cleaner. I find R very cumbersome. I rarely write C# or experiment with anything else, but that’s the nature of my job. PowerShell is important, as I do a bunch of DevOps and PoSh is a good choice to work with on the command line for gluing processes together.

    There was a set of the top articles on programming languages from 2022 that I saw recently. I found it interesting to see what was popular. The top one was about Python being the most popular, but it shouldn’t be. This one feels like clickbait, and I find many of the conclusions not making an argument against python in a meaningful way.

    There are some other links on the “hotness” of various languages. I think these are clicked on as many developers are just curious about what others are doing, and what they might experiment with. While I like curiosity and experimentation, I do think that many of our important systems in organizations need to be built with mainstream technologies. Support and staffing are a challenge, and while Golang might be great, finding people to read and code in it is hard. I don’t know how to balance the growth of new tech with the safety of old tech, but I wouldn’t stray too far from the mainstream for anything important.

    I do find it interesting that COBOL makes the list. I know there are still lots of COBOL systems, and while there aren’t a ton of jobs, there are jobs and little competition. If I were 10-15 years younger, this would be tempting. Of course, I’d have to be willing to adapt to the jobs, but it is tempting. I know a few people making well into the six figures because of COBOL jobs.

    It’s nice to see SQL is one of the top 10 languages in use, according to this survey.. It was #9 in 2021 and #8 in 2022. I don’t know it grew in popularity so much as assembly declined compared to other skills. I certainly can’t see SQL going away, but it’s not as popular, clickbait-y, or exciting as other languages. Instead, it’s a core, required skill for any serious software development. Whether you use relational or NoSQL databases, likely you need some SQL skills.

    Steve Jones

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

  • Do Hybrid Conferences Work?

    The pandemic forced many events online, which has worked fairly well inside many companies and certainly spurred some technological advances in how we meet and share information. With the pandemic ending or at least entering an endemic phase, there are many live events now, as well as some attempting to embrace a hybrid philosophy.

    I went to two conferences in 2022 that embraced the hybrid concept: SQL Bits and the PASS Data Community Summit. I was just a speaker at the former, and mostly a speaker at the latter, though I saw quite a bit of the behind-the-scenes action from the organizers’ perspective at the Data Community Summit.

    During SQL Bits, I watched a hybrid session with a remote speaker. I also presented two sessions with a moderator that was engaged with the virtual attendees. The experience watching a remote presenter wasn’t great, and the audio at times was hard to hear. I also spoke with a few virtual presenters who also noted they struggled to hear people in the room. All in all, it felt somewhat live, but I felt disengaged from the speaker, and missed a feeling of interaction from the picture-in-picture of the individual speaker inside the larger screen. It was just too hard to see them and understand body language.

    At both events, the sessions I presented with a moderator went well, and I felt the moderator could be a good proxy for people online. I also know that I have little visibility into what people online see and hear. I’ve gone out of camera range at times, and I rarely know if the virtual audience can see my entire screen, me, or some combination of both, much less hear what I’m saying.

    After the Summit, I read a post about hybrid events from Andy Galbraith, which made a lot of sense to me. I enjoyed seeing and speaking with Andy in Seattle, though I know that our interactions would have been fewer, less satisfying, and less connected if we were virtual using Spatial.IO or some other technology. Spatial has been the best online platform I’ve seen for groups, but it’s still not great.

    Like Andy, I don’t want to pick a fight, but I have a few perspectives on why I don’t think hybrid works for the most part. First, it’s resource expensive. The equipment, people, and time spent putting the show together make it less attractive for most events, even paid. The people managing AV find it more than twice as hard to manage the technology and don’t like the added stress.

    Second, the interaction is still very limited, and when we do try to interact, it’s full of pauses and stutters in conversation that make this much worse than in person. Even a proxy adds delays and a very un-natural feeling to the engagement.

    Lastly, we don’t really create the same engagement as the view from a virtual event is very limited, and one can’t really engage with other attendees in the same way we can in person. Not only in sessions but before/after and in other spaces. Meetings with more than ten people are often hard to engage with more than a few people, so I don’t expect we can make things better when there are 50, 100, or more people in a virtual meeting.

    I appreciate the accessibility aspect of virtual attendance. I think we ought to have more virtual events. I was glad we had a few virtual SQL Saturdays in 2022 and I’d like to see more in 2023. If you want to put one on, especially with a niche technology, please reach out. I’d love to see more of these events.

    I just don’t think hybrid works. Not at large conferences, not at SQL Saturday, and not at user groups. My view is you should choose one or the other. Make it in-person or virtual.

    That being said, I do like the broadcast efforts from large conferences. I thought PASSTV was great. I have enjoyed the shows between sessions at Ignite and Build, and I hope we can do some of that for the 2023 PASS Data Community Summit. One thing I think has worked well across decades is broadcasting. The effort is lower and the experience for the remote audience can be better. They aren’t included, but they can see a “show” that is better than a clumsy attempt at bringing thousands of people into a “room” of some sort.

    I don’t think hybrid conferences work, but I know I’m biased in that I help run and organize live events. I want to see more live events in the future, and I want to see more virtual events.

    Just not together.

    Steve Jones

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

  • The Cost of Employee Turnover

    Sometime during the first 3-4 months of the pandemic, after offices all over the world closed, I thought that a lot of businesses would try to hold on to existing employees and minimize turnover. I also thought many employees would be nervous about changing jobs amid all the uncertainty.

    That wasn’t the case everywhere, and I was surprised at how much employee turnover occurred in many companies during 2020 and 2021. We had the Great Resignation, where talented employees (and some not-so-talented) found new employment with lots of remove flexibility. We typically have low turnover at Redgate, but more surprising to me was the number of people we’ve hired in the last two years.

    Our gains come from losses elsewhere. It seems a lot of companies have had a bit of turnover, more than they liked.  The costs of replacing a staffer has climbed to an average of USD$57k, according to a recent poll of hiring managers. I’m sure this is a combination of the time and money spent on recruiters and interviews as well the lost productivity of having less people around.

    For many of us working in technology, we realize that losing good people is a problem. Often we lose undocumented knowledge about our systems,  those shortcuts, checks, small tasks, not-so-obvious fixes, and more that make life easier. We can feel more stressed about additional work, or even the anticipated unknown challenges we might face. Moral, productivity, and motivation decrease, which creates a snowball effect. Everyone gets less done, which costs the organization more. Either lower revenue, more costs, or perhaps fewer services for those government or non-profit concerns.

    With large tech companies letting lots of talented people go, I wonder if we’ll see more competition in the employment market. For quite a few years there have been fewer workers than there are jobs. Perhaps that changes a bit in the future, though I still think there are not nearly enough talented workers for the positions open. Good for talented workers as they may have more choices, but also good for less talented workers when companies feel pressure to hire anyone.

    Except, what I’ve seen in a lot of companies is that they don’t want to hire anyone. Having a degree or cert isn’t enough. Companies aren’t going to hire you because you are Azure/AWS/etc. certified. They want tech skills and at least a few soft ones. That creates an even higher cost to fill positions, so maybe that USD$57k isn’t a bad number.

    To me, what this really means is that organizations ought to look at poor management, both middle and upper, and replace those people. That’s the problem in many places, one that isn’t easily fixed. Poor culture, micromanagement, lack of support, little-to-no psychological safety, and more contribute to poor retention.

    Culture is important and building it is hard. While not everyone will have a great culture, many organizations can avoid a poor one by treating people fairly and ensuring management understands how to do that. If for no other reason than to avoid the high costs of replacing staff.

    Steve Jones

  • The Best and Worst Tech of 2022

    There was an article on the worst technology of 2022 from the MIT Technology Review. I was hoping to get some sense of what was really useful or failure-prone technology, but it seems that the article delves into decisions on how to run technology or policy more than the actual technology.

    The list is here, with my short comments on those that might apply as actual technology items:

    • The FTX meltdown – no
    • The fentanyl crisis – no
    • a pig heart to human transplant – maybe. A biotech attempt that didn’t work
    • the issues with zero covid in China – policy, not tech
    • Twitter rules – no
    • Ticketmaster system meltdown – this counts
    • Meta’s Galactica – definitely among the worst

    Many of these seem more about decisions made in how a platform or technology is used, rather than the merits of the system. The FTX thing was less even technology and more a scam using software that likely worked as intended.

    For the best technology, I find many lists that delve into gadgets. Those can be fun and certainly might feel like they change how you use technology. From that list, I know that mobiles and headphones can be exciting, but these always feel incremental to me. I actually have preferred seeing how cheap mid-range headphones have become. I do think the rings measuring health instead of a watch-like device is a little innovative. Tablets, laptops, and TVs, meh.

    In terms of innovative tech, this is quite a list. Shooting a probe at an asteroid is amazing engineering. A personalized info board, seen differently by many different people is fascinating, though a bit creepy. The DALL-E 2 image generator was certainly incredibly tech, albeit controversial. The 3D-printed ear is amazing as well.

    The world of technology for many of us (frameworks, languages, software, hardware) changes so fast. Vendors have shrunk their lifecycles as they move to a DevOps style of working, which creates pressure on us to keep up, or at least be able to learn quickly as versions change. We certainly don’t want to work on the worst technology, and maybe not the best because it changes fast. Instead, we need to pick and choose those items that are relevant to those that hire us to get things done.

    Steve Jones

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