Republish: More Linux than Windows

Posted on May 26, 2025 by way0utwest

It’s Memorial Day in the US and a holiday. With a busy schedule, I didn’t realize this was a holiday and started to schedule some things before my wife reminded me.

So while I tackle some chores, you get a republish of More Linux than Windows.

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DevOps Devour Hour Slides

Posted on May 23, 2025 by way0utwest

Here are the slides from my talk today at the Redgate NYC Devour Hour: Architecting Zero Downtime Deployments.pptx

The Repo is here: https://github.com/way0utwest/ZeroDowntime

An interesting question on feature toggles: Would you use Extended Properties for a feature toggle flag?

My answer:

I wouldn’t. I find Extended Propeties (and triggers) to be hidden inside databases and I don’t like hidden things. They fall through the cracks, it’s hard to remember they exist, and more. Plus Extended properties aren’t easily programmed.

I would love

alter table add (or update) extended property

and a way to query these

select * from table.properties

Instead we have a messed up sp_add/update property with a very, very unintuitive set of parameters.

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Advice I Like: Take Two Trips

Posted on May 23, 2025 by way0utwest

If you have any doubt about being able to carry a load in one trip, do yourself a huge favor and make two trips – from Excellent Advice for Living

As I get older, this tends to resonate more with me. Certainly I’ve learned not to strain my body because pushing past a limit is painful for days or weeks (or months).

However, this “carry a load” can make sense in more than just the physical carrying-a-bunch-of-stuff situation. This is a similar situation is you’re trying to accomplish too much in a day, or a sprint, or committing to too many things in a short period of time. It also applies when you try to communicate too many things at once.

I live my life in a busy fashion, usually having too much stuff on my list of things to do. I’m perpetually behind on fixing things on the ranch, taking care of the house, cooking meals, getting to the gym, improving my coaching skills, etc. I rarely take a day off from not doing something to make my (or someone else’s) life better. That’s a little of how I am built.

However, I have learned to pace myself a bit more and be cautious about how many things I tackle in a day. I have projects that I might try to rush through in a day and perhaps not get them done the way I expected. Instead, I might break them up across two days. Or two sessions.

I’ve also learned to communicate one thing and not try to get people to think about three things at once. I try to get myself, and others, to focus on the one important thing that we’re talking about at that moment.

And, of course, I try not to carry too much at once. I find myself using carts or UTVs rather than piling everything into my arms.

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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Does Version Control Scare You

Posted on May 21, 2025 by way0utwest

As a part of my job, I often work with customers on how they can get database code into a version control system. That’s Git for the most part today, which is the most popular system in the world. I’m comfortable using Git for many basic tasks, but I am not an expert by any means. I’ve used version control for years, and quite a few systems, and I like Git as a way of managing code.

I have been surprised how many people aren’t comfortable with version control or Git. Many don’t have the habit, but are amenable to it. What I’m amazed by in 2025 is how many people don’t use it, given that so many tools we use to work with databases, and even other systems, will store items in Git. This isn’t just for development code, but also for infrastructure code. Lots of data tools and servers can store data in Git and use it to deploy changes to all kinds of systems. I’d have expected more people to know Git.

As a part of my charity work, I manage the SQL Saturday site, which is stored in a public GitHub repo and all changes are submitted through pull requests to make changes to the site. A few organizers will fork the repo and submit changes to me as pull requests. I love those as I can approve those on my phone. A very few organizers can merge their own changes, as they’ve built up trust. I am, however, surprised at how few people are willing to do any Git work.

It seems that so many data professionals don’t want to use or learn Git. I’d have thought this was a core skill for many technical people these days. At least the core ability to clone, branch, commit, and create pull requests. Squashing commits, rebasing, and more can be challenging, but often there will be someone in your organization that can help you if you need to perform those actions.

I wonder if you are intimidated by version control, or if you find yourself too busy to use it, or maybe you don’t think it’s valuable. I am curious what you think today.

I’ve written about how to use Git in ADS (don’t do that anymore), but those instructions work for VS Code.  I’ve written a bit about how DBAs can start using Git. If you don’t like the CLI, there are many thick clients, which are easy to use. Give Git a try today and see how it might help you manage and version your code, your scripts, your documentation.

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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