Everything is the right question away

Posted on March 23, 2026 by way0utwest

When I was young and needed to learn about something, I had to go to a library or a bookstore to get information. I often started by looking through an encyclopedia. I had to wander between entries to learn more about the topic I was researching. A few lucky friends had their own copy of an encyclopedia, which was nice since we could research at home. At some point these collections of information were moved to CD/DVDs, which made them more portable and more accessible to a larger group of people than in the past.

In the 90s we had the innovation of search engines, which allows us to more quickly move through information. There was more information available on the Internet than was ever published in encyclopedias. Over the years, these search engines improved their ability to rank and recommend information that is relevant to your query. However, you still need some idea of what you are trying to learn about. You have to direct the searches, although the Google auto-complete felt very predictive at times.

However, I heard a quote recently that is the title of this piece: everything is the right question away.

That might seem like something a search engine or even an encyclopedia would help with, but consider the fact that with an AI LLM you don’t have to specify much at all to get started. You can even ask it the question of how do I do/learn/find something and get a result that seems better than any computer system in the past. It might be better than what you get from most humans as well.

Of course, you might not get the answer you want or need, though you can continue to ask the LLM and refine what you need. What’s even better is that once you get a good answer, you can shortcut the route to that knowledge by asking the LLM to provide you with a better prompt to get you to the place you end up in faster.

Asking the right question to get an answer is an age-old human problem. Philosophers and religious figures have debated and hinted at this for centuries. You still need to build strong communication skills to ask a clear question and some expertise to judge the results. AI LLMs, however, make this a much easier and quicker process than at any time previously in human history.

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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Hidden Heroes

Posted on March 20, 2026 by way0utwest

A few weeks ago I was in Bletchley Park, at the facility where the Allies decoded and broke many of the German Nazi messages in World War II. It’s quite a facility and museum, and I hope to go back. I was distracted that day and didn’t get a lot of time to enjoy the exhibits and really learn more about what happened there.

I was there for our Redgate 2026 Company Kickoff, and as a part of that, two different executives in our company shared their stories of people who had worked there. What was interesting is that until we planned this event, these two people had no idea that there were people they knew well, who had been part of the effort to end World War II at Bletchley Park. This facility can be considered to be one of the birthplaces of computing.

They were some of the hidden heroes of World War II.

Our executives drew a parallel of these people to our customers, notably the DBAs we work with. These are often hidden heroes in their organizations, toiling away, getting things done, keeping systems running, without the recognition or gratitude they might get if their efforts were more widely broadcast.

That might be a bit of a stretch. However, many of us who work on database systems are doing essential work that our organizations depend on. If we do a poor job, many people complain. If we make mistakes, (usually) lives aren’t lost, but profits can be. Often, no one knows our names, we don’t get a lot of thanks for databases working well, and we have high expectations from our customers.

Many of us know that data is critical for most organizations today. Many in management today are acknowledging this as well, at least to investors. I don’t know if they’ll ever start to truly appreciate data professionals with kudos and compensation. That might not be a step they’re willing to take since many other departments might claim to be just as important as they also work with data in some way.

Perhaps we will remain the hidden heroes in today’s organizations.

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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A New Word: los vidados

Posted on March 20, 2026 by way0utwest

los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might have forgotten completely if someone hadn’t happened to mention them again – friends of friends, people you once shared classes with, people you heard stories about, who you didn’t know well but who still made up the fabric of your intense little community – making you wonder who else might be out there somewhere, only just remembering that you exist.

I have a lot of los vivados in my life. I’m old (late 50s), so high school and college were a long time ago. This is one thing I love about Facebook and Instagram is that I’ll get a memory, a glimpse of the past, of someone I knew, but not well. A post by someone closer leads me to the los vivados of my life.

I had this recently at a Redgate event. Someone came up to me and the face was familiar, but I didn’t recognize them or their name. However, they reminded me we’d met years ago at an event and had a chat.

I might be more memorable since I speak often, but I’m sure there are people how there who barely remember me, or remember something I’ve said/written, but don’t know the name.

I think los vivados exist for all of us, mostly because of the faulty human memory.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

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Changing Data Types

Posted on March 18, 2026 by way0utwest

Recently I was working with a customer that is trying to smooth out their database development process. They noted that a lot of changes tend to take a significant amount of time and impact their availability. They came to Redgate to see if Flyway might be a way to improve the effectiveness of their internal groups that build, deploy, and manage their database software.

We can help, but often when I get called to help architect things, we are trying to decide if the customer is a good fit for our solutions. Since we work on a subscription model, we want to be sure customers are happy and get value from their decision. Otherwise they have a poor experience and don’t renew. This might be because they aren’t ready, or it might be that the question wasn’t considered of whether our solution fits their environment well. In any case, I usually dig into the goals and challenges they’ve faced with their current process.

In this case, they found that developers often changed data types of columns to better match the data being stored. That can be a disruptive change, and while Flyway does some amazing things, the software is still bound by the rules of making changes on the platform. In this case, SQL Server changes can sometimes be metadata-only changes, which are fast. Sometimes this isn’t the case.

After the call, I started to wonder how often people change data types? I’ve rarely done this, and honestly, I’ve used a zero-downtime pattern a few times to add a new column, move data, use triggers, and then when I’m sure all data is moved, drop the old column. Changing types in place seems like a bad idea most of the time.

Sometimes it’s not a big deal, but I prefer to avoid any potential problems if I can.

That got me wondering. How often do you change data types in existing tables/columns? Is this because of poor data modeling? Changing requirements? Or are you lucky enough to avoid this?

Or maybe you’re unlucky in that you can’t change those poorly chosen types.

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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