Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • I Will Write Bad Code

    I’ll write bad code. I know it will happen. I’ll produce a bad query, incorrect logic, or the wrong data transformation being returned.

    This won’t be a malicious act. It might be because of ignorance, or perhaps just a simple mistake. My code might be the result of short-sightedness or not accounting for a potential situation. I might even misinterpret poorly written specifications and place the blame on others. Maybe I’ll misread the code and won’t realize there’s a problem.

    And, for sure, this code will get deployed to production.

    At some point I know this will happen, to me or someone else. And for whatever reason, I need to account for that fact in my software development process. I can’t prevent mistakes, as decades of software development have proven. Despite my best efforts, code reviews, the tests implemented in QA and elsewhere, bad code is going to get deployed.

    The important thing in any software development project is how you handle the mistakes. How do you move forward, and certainly, how do you apply a patch? Can you do it quick enough to minimize the impact to clients? Or must they deal with the issues, developing the workaround or missing functionality for a significant portion of time? Or will they consider abandoning your software for some other vendor?

    One of the reasons I continue to advocate for a DevOps approach is that a known process can enable you to fix your mistakes in a timely manner. With a consistent approach to writing, testing, and deploying software, you can apply a patch when it is needed. Certainly the code needs to be logically fixed, but a reliable process will help ease all the overhead of getting your code to a production system.

    DevOps can be implemented many ways, and if applied in name only, things won’t improve. We can’t say we’re using DevOps, or we’re coding faster, or we release every week. We need to really implement the three ways. However, if you approach your project and staff with the idea that although things are flawed, they can be improved and made better, you’ll find that you can deliver those fixes for clients in an extremely timely manner with a minimum of risk.

    DevOps allows us to move faster, but that’s not the goal. The goal is that we improve things and have confidence that we can release when we want to, in a repeatable, reliable, less risky fashion.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • A Backup Change

    Backups are a fundamental skill for most DBAs, and hopefully, for most technology professionals. For developers, I’d hope that most of you use some sort of version control, and that you back up your VCS database. I actually had someone ask why we needed to back up the VCS if we had the code on our machines. Certainly the local code on your system, or in your database, provides you some level of redundancy, but all the branches, all the code from other developers, you really want a real backup. For git, this is a simple file level backup.

    I recently got a letter from Crashplan, who I’ve been using for a few years as a backup provider. Apparently they are exiting the home backup market, choosing to focus on businesses. I chose them since it was an economical provider, with good ratings, that let me back up multiple machines. I’ve been happy with them, tested a restores of a few files, but never needed the service. Now, I need a new solution. I keep two copies at home, but what about a fire or disaster? I want an offsite backup.

    One of the things I’ve wanted with a backup solution is a hands off process. While I’ve managed to use cloud sync software and VCS reports to move most work stuff from one machine to others, there are pictures and other data that I don’t want to lose. I’ve also got computers for my wife and kids that I’d like to have backed up. The Crashplan subscription for 5 computers worked great for me.

    It doesn’t seem there are a lot of providers out there for families. Most focus on businesses or the individual, which is fine. Backblaze seems like the next best choice, and at $50/yr/computer, perhaps that’s a fair price. I’ve considered using Amazon Glacier and CloudBerry software, but that feels like I’m giving myself another management job to track. Though, maybe with PoSh available cross platform, I could just build a set of scripts to let each computer notify me if there are issues. I’m still trying to decide what makes sense.

    Backup is important, and it’s becoming a more cumbersome job over time. As my family generates more pictures and video, I get more concerned about backup. Especially the cost. The same problems and challenges I face as a DBA, though often with a slightly bigger budget. However, the challenge of balancing a budget with the requirements to meet some RPO is the same.

    Steve Jones

     

  • The Randomness of Analog

    One of the joys for much of my early life was walking through a library, looking for a book to curl up in the corner with and read. As a young boy, I would walk to a local library and read at the wooden tables before I had my own library card to check out books. Later, I moved and had a newer library with large, comfortable chairs in which to sit and read a few pages. I’ve enjoyed the same thing as an adult in various bookstores.

    I didn’t often have a specific book I wanted to read, so I’d randomly walk around, looking at spines, covers, and choosing a book in a somewhat random fashion. My fellow founder at SQLServerCentral, Andy Warren, also appreciated the randomness of browsing in a library for bookstore, discovering some new author or story to enjoy. Across the years, we’ve discussed and debated whether or not there was a way to duplicate this experience with technology.

    These days I tend to buy or borrow all my books electronically. The convenience and unparalleled and time is valuable, and I certainly don’t miss the days of packing 4-5 large books for a week long conference trip. However, Amazon and my local library tend to use recommendation algorithms, or popular titles as the presentation method for their sites. I have lost quite a bit of the ability to enjoy the randomness that comes from wandering and happening upon new titles. Andy feels the same way, though none of our brainstorming has produced a way to duplicate the feeling of wandering through bookshelves in an electronic fashion.

    I’m not sure if there is or isn’t a way to deuplicate this electroncially, but certainly the feel isn’t the same on a screen. All too often our focus when working with data is narrowed to a limited set of choices. And often when we build applications and provide data to users, we are trying to be exacting and relevant, not random. So much of what we choose to do in software is to remove much of the randomness from our systems. Event the “browse” features are often scoped or focused in a particular topic, subject, or area.

    This filtering to a particular bubble of data is one of those areas where we have tremendous power in shaping the world. The code and queries we write, the organization of our data, this will have an impact on our users, and I’m not always sure this is for the best. Perhaps overall this is more helpful, but it also serves to prevent us from viewing the forest, only seeing the trees. If you doubt this, try browsing the internet in Private mode sometimes and run searches. You might be amazed how different the Internet can look.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Final Thoughts

    I am a fan of Walt Mossberg. I have read his work and seen him interview many famous people in technology across the years. He has been quite an influential reviewer and commenter. If you haven’t ever read anything from him, I might recommend his view on Internet regulation or his thoughts on the Steve Jobs biopic , or even check out his gadget museum. You might even take a few minutes and read about The Taco Bell interview. It’s a pretty neat story.

    Mr. Mossberg recently wrote his last column. He’s retiring this year, and penned a look at some of the technology he’s experienced in his lifetime. Reading over the piece brought back some nostalgic moments for me as I think about how the world has changed. He also notes that early in his career he wrote this sentence: “Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it isn’t your fault “.  Now he says “Personal technology is usually pretty easy to use, and, if it’s not, it’s not your fault.”

    I agree with that, and one of the complaints I have with our industry. We haven’t done a great job of actually considering users and building software that’s not only intuitive and easy to use, but also gets easier over time. While I learned to appreciate the adaptation of some Office software that keeps the often used menu items displayed and remembers previous options I’ve used for features, I find this is the exception, not the rule. Our software is often in the face of the user, and I constantly bemoan the state of poorly written applications.

    As we’ve moved to larger displays, and smaller displays, using touch, speech, and other methods of interacting with computing devices, building newer devices that look nothing like the computer of the past or even the computers of recent years gone by, we haven’t necessarily made the computer fade into the background. The smartphone (and related car displays, tablets, etc.) have perhaps done one of the best jobs of integrating into our analog world, but the interfaces, displays, and certainly rendering of content overall has a long way to go. Plenty of that is our fault, we, the people who build applications.

    I wonder if we’ll reach Mr. Mossberg’s vision of having most of our computing infrastructure fading into the background. Certainly reducing the need for cords and remembering to charge things will help. I look forward to the day when I have multiple pads built into my desk, my kitchen, my car, and more to just charge my devices when I set them down, so I don’t need to think about power. I want connectivity to be just available, and I certainly want to be able to enlarge text easily, without zooming in and scrolling side to side as my eyes age.

    The world may get better applications and infrastructure, and hopefully much better security. I certainly think it’s possible, though not likely to be ubiquitous among all parts of the Internet. I doubt that for most of us choosing to work with technology as a career that we’ll see computing fade away. We’re too involved in the details, and hopefully excited by systems, to abstract ourselves too far away.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.