Voice of the DBA

Tag: Database Weekly

  • Back to Basics

    This week I saw a post from Randolph West that covers binary and hexadecimal. It seemed basic and simple to me, but I’m old. I started learning about binary and hex in high school, where we used to tap our fingers to count in binary. Up was “0”, and down was “1”, and with one hand, you count to 31 (from zero). At the time, I thought it was important to know binary and hex to work with computers.

    These days, I’ve rarely had to deal with binary and hex. They aren’t useless in programming, but they are much less used in these days of GB of memory and large data structures. We don’t encode things as often as we used to. Usually now hex just means I’m dealing with varbinary and need to cast it (or render it in some other way).

    During the last few years, I’ve seen some efforts to get back to basics and publish more information that helps people get started or fill in gaps for areas that someone might have missed. Years ago Ed Leighton-Dick started the SQLNewBlogger challenge. I participated, and continue to write some basic posts every week or two. Grant had his database fundamentals series, and SQLServerCentral has published the Stairway Series for some time, giving people a way to get started in some new area of the data platform.

    I think it’s important that we continue to cover the basics in all aspects of the data platform, as well as other areas. The world of technology is so wide, and new people are always starting their journey in their industry. Even for those of us that have worked with SQL Server or some other area for a long time don’t know everything about the platform. We often have as need to learn more about some niche and need some basics to help us. I think Azure Data Factory as a perfect example of this. Many people who worked with SSIS for years might need a few primers on the differences with ADF to understand a slightly new paradigm. Much of cloud computing needs basics, and constant updates to those pieces.

    I know that the basics are always popular at SQL Saturdays and other conferences. The basics often get the most reads as articles, and I am hopeful that we will continue to see those with knowledge remembering that the basics are often the most important part of learning to build better software and systems for the future.

    Steve Jones

  • No-code Software Engineering

    Low and no code applications have been around for a long time. In my career, I’ve seen Access, Delphi, PowerBuilder, and various 4GL packages used to build software for business users. Some worked well, some didn’t, and often many didn’t scale. Not all, but many.

    The problems in many of these tools, at least to me, was that many of the “developers” using them weren’t developers. They were business people trying to get something done quickly. Often these weren’t people thinking about performance or software engineering in the way that many developers think of those topics.

    Arguably, there are plenty of Java, C#, and other developers that don’t think things through either. However, many developers do want to solve problems and build interesting solutions. They don’t (often) want the drudgery of moving around UI elements or reinventing CRUD data operations.

    I saw an interesting piece this week noting that No-code doesn’t mean we avoid software engineering. The author praises some of the no-code platforms because they allow developers to do the fun part of building logic and solving problems without the tedious nature of writing an IF statement with the correct syntax. There are a number of reasons given, which sound good.

    I don’t know that I think that no-code is the way to go, but I do get the idea of using lots of proven and tested components, features, services, and more rather than reinventing them. I think that connections to database objects, RDBMS or NoSQL, ought to be easy, and lots of the mundane work of plumbing systems together could be centralized and reused. I certainly think that LINQ or simple query languages make sense, though likely having a way to more quickly and easily build/test/refactor and deploy database methods as well as make them more flexible (select col from @table, anyone?) might simplify database coding.

    I doubt we’ll get rid of C#, Java, or other fairly low level code anytime soon. I write about better programming languages recently, and I can see us moving to more succinct languages over time, but that will take decades. There is far too much invested in current codebases by developers and organizations to think about quick switches.

    The best way to build better applications is to have developers continue to learn, practice, test, and change their coding. They need to seek to be better, which I think most of them do, but management and leaders need to demand this and invest in staff (time and money) to help them improve. Then I suspect that whether you use lots of code or none, all your applications will work better.

    Steve Jones

  • Looking to Role Models

    I’ve spoken at many conferences and user groups over the years. These have been one of the more enjoyable times in my career, and I encourage people to give it a try. You may not like it, but it can be exciting, rewarding, and certainly helpful in your career.

    One of the things that helped me start speaking and gain confidence that I could do it was seeing other people I personally knew deliver a presentation. They were a role model, and they gave me the confidence to start.

    In a few weeks, the Women in Technology virtual group is putting on a Data Platform WIT Day, with a lineup of speakers that are covering a wide variety of topics, and are great role models for anyone, but especially women in our industry.

    Many of us wander through our careers, and often look to others to help inspire us to set, work towards, and achieve goals. The SQL Server community has shared, inspired, and supported each other in a way I haven’t seen in other areas. I am glad to see that we have different groups that continue to do this, even in this difficult pandemic time.

    Steve Jones

  • Building a Better Community

    The demise of the PASS organization is just a few weeks away, and if you want to watch or save any content, be sure you get moving. The sites go dark on 15 Jan 2021, so time is short. I found I could right click and save a number of the PASS Pro videos, as I’d like to see what content was produced by some of my friends and fellow community members.

    As we look forward, I am hopeful and excited that the community will continue to come together and find ways to grow and share with each other. Already DataSaturdays are up and events coming. Even if my bid for SQLSaturday.com falls short, I’m not remotely worried. We will continue to grow and run events that help the SQLFamily share, grow, and bond. The excitement and growth of the community across the last two decades was facilitated by PASS, but I think it’s really the people in the community that have done the work of building an amazing movement, especially around SQL Saturday.

    I saw this past week a number of posts that look to the future. I liked Brent’s question of what you might want in a community. Most of the respondents note that content is the number one goal, which I agree with. When Andy, Brian, and I started SQL Saturday, we did so with the idea that many people don’t have the time or resources to go to the Summit (or SQL Bits, SQL Intersection, etc.). We wanted to provide a way that most people could get the conference experience and get inspired and excited. It worked better than we ever imagined, and I’m confident that many people will find ways to do so in the future. Already, with events like GroupBy, New Stars of Data, Data Relay and DataGrillen, there is plenty of enthusiasm in the community.

    We are having discussions about how to replicate some of the success with Data Saturdays already. There is guidance for speakers and user groups. If you are a part of any of those, ensure that you are preparing for things to change in a few weeks. Look to the future, and find a way to help your community grow in 2021.

    Steve Jones