Creating a GitHub Actions Self-Hosted Runner

Posted on February 10, 2025 by way0utwest

I had to demo the Flyway Autopilot system recently and created a GitHub Actions runner as a part of that. This post documents how this went.

First, if you go to the settings in a repo and click the Actions area, you see a Runners item. Click that. Notice I have no runners.

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In the upper right corner, I can click a button to create one.

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This gives me the instructions to get a new one. Note, these are PowerShell commands, and the first command doesn’t quite work right. Still, this is what I need.

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I opened a CMD window and stared running these. Note, I need to repeat the change directory.

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Now start PowerShell as the next commands are PoSh ones. When I copy the next command, it starts downloading a zip file. As of this writing, this is a 600-ish MB file.

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Once this is done, you can run the next commands, which unzip and configure this. For the config, I just hit enter as I don’t have multiple groups or tags, and I leave it named as my machine. I also don’t bother to run this as a service.

The last command runs the runner agent.

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If I go back to the Runner screen in Settings, I see I have an idle agent set up.

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And that’s it. If I pick one of my workflows in the Actions tab, I can run it and I’ll see the job started in my runner folder. Here are my actions with the Run workflow button on the right.

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If I click this, I see the job start in the CLI.

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If I get back to the Actions, I’ll see things in progress. As you can see, I was slow here.

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That’s about it. Now I can run local automations in my repo that connect to things like local databases, which can be handy.

Video Walkthrough

I’ve got a video of this process if you want to watch it.

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Extended Event Comfort

Posted on February 10, 2025 by way0utwest

I saw an interesting thread recently in the SQL Server Community Slack where someone posted about extended events (XE). They were asking about whether XE would have a problem with a situation. The problem wasn’t so interesting, but a quote from one of the responders was. The quote was:

The best time to have learned Extended Events was ten years ago. The second best time is today.

I love that, and I tend to agree. If you need to trace what is happening inside your SQL Server, you need to learn how to capture information with Extended Events. That’s the best way to dig into the details of how queries affect your system.

It’s also hard. I know that whenever I need to use it, which is rare, I have to dig through some articles and docs to understand what thing I need to do. Even having some scripts hasn’t helped because it’s a sufficiently complex system that unless I use it regularly, I forget how all the filters, targets, events, etc. work.

On one hand, I think it’s amazing, and on the other, it’s too hard to use. Even when I try the Extended Events profiler, it’s so different from Profiler that I find myself getting frustrated at times trying to dig through the information.

I am curious how many of you think XE is easy to configure and if you use it often. What are the places it works well? For those of you that don’t use XE or haven’t learned, why not? Do you not have to trace what’s happening with queries in some detail? Or do you have another way that you dive deep into your system? Or do you not have the need?

If you do want to learn more, we have a short Stairway Series on Extended Events to help you get started, as well as a few other articles. If you’re an expert, we’d love a few more on using XE in specific situations.

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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No End to Programmers

Posted on February 8, 2025 by way0utwest

There’s an interesting piece at O’Reilly this week titled The End of Programming as We Know It. That’s actually a good title, but it doesn’t mean the end to programmers, developers, software engineers, of whatever people call themselves.

The piece looks back at history, starting with physically connecting circuits to program and moving to switch flippers, cards, compiled languages, and on to the web and mobile systems. Each of this brought more and more programmers into the industry because there’s no end to the software needs of the world and it’s hard to write good code.

I like that the web was seen as the end of programming as anyone could easily build a minimal application to share things. Even frameworks like WordPress let novices create applications that do all sorts of useful things. However, we still need programmers. Look around at how many WordPress consultants are willing to help you.

That’s because there’s a difference between configuring something off a shelf (or from a digital store) and actually having a working application for your situation. There’s no end to what people want to build, and really, they need someone to build it for them. Or at least modify, improve, or re-implement the proof of concept they created.

The world of AI LLMs, and chat-oriented programming, is no different. Anyone can ask for an app and get a reasonable prototype. However, I don’t think this means less programmers. While more people will build more PoCs or prototypes, that also means more people will need a professional to clean up their system and make it work, scale, and perform well. And probably help secure it better.

Programmers (developers, software engineers, etc.) will scale themselves with AI tech, as they’ll get the AI to do some scaffolding and initial work that they clean up. I’m sure the very best will build RAG AI systems that generate the type of code they want with a little training and input. I could see millions of AI assistants that help write basis code outlines, write tests, check for standards and code smells, and help the human shift left, catching small, simple, silly mistakes.

I think we’ll have more people producing software in the future, but I also think that those who know their industry well will be in more demand. They’ll recognize issues in AI-generated code, they’ll guide AIs better, and they’ll communicate more clearly with AIs. They’ll get their pick of the best jobs, and they might be better compensated.

Things they likely do today with their fellow humans.

Steve Jones

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Unreliable Narrators

Posted on February 7, 2025 by way0utwest

I listened to an interview with Grady Booch. If you’ve never heard of him, he has been a software engineer for a long time, developed UML, and worked at IBM and a number of other places. He has devoted his life to improving software engineering. He even told Bill Gates he didn’t want to be the Chief Software Architect at Microsoft.

At one point he had a less than flattering description of AI LLMs. Politely, they are unreliable narrators. Less politely, he feels that they allow us to build at a global scale, unreliable BS generators. This is because the LLMs that are stochastic parrots, which can produce some coherent results. Primarily they allow us to navigate a very large lake in space, i.e. the Internet. I think that’s true. I have found AIs to be pretty good search engines. Not perfect, but good.

Mr. Booch notes that LLMs, while interesting, are a shadow or a whisper of what humans can do. He’s critical of those who think AI is going to compete with humans. Here are limitations on what the tech can do, and Mr. Booch thinks that the approaches people are taking, architecturally, are wrong. As part of his work, he studies more of how humans work and think as a way of trying to build better software architecture.

Caveat, he does think we can build more intelligent systems, but it’s not with Gen AI/LLM architectures.

I tend to agree with him and do think that the LLMs are unreliable. They appear to be intelligent, but they are more predictive engines in many ways. They can be very helpful in many ways, but they aren’t necessarily replacing smart humans. They might help smart humans replace some other humans, but they are likely to be better assistants than replacements.

It’s a great interview and worth listening to. There’s a walk-through where Mr. Booch touched on computing as well as a very positive outlook on the future of his career and the things that he is working on. It’s long, (1.5 hours), but a fun listen. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

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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