Learning a New Language

Posted on September 6, 2025 by way0utwest

This week, there are two interesting articles in the newsletter. The first is a markdown getting started article, which helps you learn how to format your documents. At first, I wasn’t sure I liked markdown, but I’ve come to prefer it for a lot of documents. It’s easy to use, and it makes using Git for docs very easy. Plus, I can mix in markdown and HTML as needed, which I really appreciate. I think most people who collaborate and update any documents in a team should learn to use markdown instead of Word, Notepad, etc.

The second one that caught me eye is one on Power Query. I don’t know Power Query, but there was a piece on the 13 things John Kerski wishes he knew when he started. I didn’t really do more than skim this since I am not writing any Power Query right now. What was interesting to me is that I’m not sure I’d bookmark this if I were actually writing Power Query in Power BI as part of my job.

Maybe I would, but as I start to use a GenAI more and more to get me started with different projects or requirements, I’m finding it as a way to kickstart me in learning something new. It’s not perfect, and I have to test the results I get. Learning to judge the quality is part of my job, but that’s different than trying to learn something new from scratch. That’s a similar view to what I’ve heard from a few people. This podcast with Kent Beck showcases this view (starts at 6:12).

In the real world, when I wanted to learn something new, I often looked for a book or a few magazine articles that might get me some basics in a new area. In the digital world, I used to do the same thing, but in the last 20 years, I’ve been looking for an article or a “start in 30 days” book that might give me some basic skills. Then I could experiment and extend what I learned to get work done, likely asking friends or someone in a forum how to do the thing I need.

Now I ask a GenAI and go from there. I no longer worry about learning the specifics of a language, as I have a good idea in general of the things I need to do. What I’m using the GenAI to do is implement some details, and then I go back and check things. It’s like having an intern who can do a first draft while I work on something else.

Except it’s way faster.

GenAI models aren’t perfect, and they make mistakes. However, the more I use them, the more I enjoy them, and I find enough small time savings that I want to use them more.

Steve Jones

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Guidelines and Requirements

Posted on September 5, 2025 by way0utwest

I saw a post from Brent that Microsoft had changed the default memory guidance. At first glance I read this as they’d changed the default values, which would be interesting. However, this is a guideline, set to 75%. I also saw a few thoughts from Randolph West on LinkedIn, and quite a few comments. The comments were interesting in a few ways.

It is easy to look at 75% and say that won’t work for this server that’s on my mind right now because I keep getting woken up. That might be true. However, the 75% number isn’t a hard requirement. It’s a guideline, a recommendation to ensure you have enough memory for the OS, but you’re trying to use most for SQL Server. Feel free to adjust it if you feel the need.

There are certainly people who will also look at that number and then go to a DBA and say, “you’ve set this to 70% (or 85% or whatever) and that’s not what Microsoft says.” Which isn’t true. What the text says is this under the recommended column: “75% of available system memory not consumed by other processes, including other instances. For more detailed recommendations, see max server memory”

If you go to the “max server memory” section, you see something else. It asks you to monitor before you set this, then do some calculations. Then it says: “This is a generic approximation, and your mileage might vary.”

That’s a great statement. What they’ve written might not work for you. That’s true. Maybe you have little RAM and some other stuff on your server, so 75% might be way too high. Maybe you have 4TB of RAM, in which case, if you blindly set 75% you should be asked to work elsewhere. Anyone managing systems with 4TB of RAM should know how to monitor, measure, and then choose something different, which might be 85% of RAM.

While there might be some requirements for managing database systems, there really are a lot of guidelines. You have to make decisions, which means you need some knowledge on which to make good decisions. If you don’t have that knowledge, or are unsure, ask others, ask the GenAI’s, conduct experiments, test things. That’s the job. Learn what you need to make things run better.

Better being what your clients need, want, and desire.

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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Advice I Like: Praise

Posted on September 5, 2025 by way0utwest

Don’t reserve your kindest praise for a person until their eulogy. Tell them while they are alive when it makes a difference to them. Write it in a letter they can keep. – from Excellent Advice for Living

This is something I try to do more. Not the letters, though that’s not a bad idea, but I find myself reaching out with short messages or thoughts (text, FB, etc.) to touch base with people. Friends, sometimes people I see often, sometimes people I see rarely.

In either case, as I age, I realize life is getting shorter and I ought to try and ensure I communicate more with people I care about.

I I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

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Concerns over AI Chat Privacy

Posted on September 3, 2025 by way0utwest

One of the major concerns for using GenAI tools is who is reading the data you submit as a prompt, and will this data be used in future training of the model? In other words, could someone using a future model access the data I put in a GenAI chat?

It’s a valid concern, and not just because of the vendors. There is a lawsuit over the use of data by OpenAI, and a court has ordered all chats to be retained, including deleted ones. Since this is a lawsuit, there is always a chance that some of the data retained gets entered into a court document or even that it might be read aloud in court and captured in a transcript.

This is a thorny data privacy issue that collides with the need for courts to maintain evidence for legal proceedings. I honestly don’t know what the answer here is, but I think this should be handled similarly to how code and other IP/proprietary items are handled as evidence. The challenge here is that there can be a lot of evidence, and I am not sure many legal organizations are really set up to handle and manage this much data.

I’m also not sure who I think should pay for this. If two parties engage in a lawsuit, but the data is actually held in custody by a third party. Do we need to have some nominal charge rate for keeping data that some need to prove their case? Is there a need to force companies like OpenAI and others to hold data in chats for a certain period of time? Something like the 7 or 10 years that a lot of governments require for tax records?

Our legal systems are outdated and ill-equipped to handle many ways in which the digital world differs from the analogue one. On one hand, I wish that lawmakers would work with advocates and technologists to update laws to make them more relevant, or perhaps, only applicable to digital data.

On the other, I worry about adding new laws that create overhead, perhaps stifle innovation, or will be out of date as soon as they are passed.

In 2025, we all should know that anything we send across the internet to another person or service could potentially be disclosed and abused. If that really bothers you, then beware of all free services and be cautious of the paid ones. Read the EULAs and decide if you can accept the risk.

Because once you send it, your data is out of your control.

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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