Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Atlanta for Two Days

    Today is the first Redgate Summit of 2024 in Atlanta. I flew to town yesterday,

    There is a packed schedule, which is mostly repeated at our other events coming up in the next few months. I’m especially busy, somehow getting roped into 5 sessions. Fortunately a few are panels, so it hasn’t been too much prep or rehearsal.

    I’ve rarely been to Atlanta in my life. We had a SQL in the City here a few years back, but otherwise, I haven’t traveled to the city. My wife used to come here often, but this is only my second trip.

    Last night was meeting a few speakers and networking. Tonight, I’m likely to lay low as it’s going to be a long day. The Hawks are out of town, so I’m likely to get a quiet dinner and decompress before an early flight tomorrow.

    Hopefully I’ll get to town at some point in the future and spend more time wandering around.

  • Friday Flyway Tips–Undoing Development Changes

    I had a customer ask about undoing changes made by developers, similar to what SQL Source Control does. I had to do a little research to show how to do this, which is the tip this week.

    I’ve been working with Flyway Desktop for work more and more as we transition from older SSMS plugins to the standalone tool. This series looks at some tips I’ve gotten along the way.

    Making Changes in Development

    I’ve got a few changes I want to make. You can see these in the image below, where I’ve added a column and then a couple of tables.

    2024-02-29 11_30_19-Custom Selection

    I test this (hopefully) and I come to Flyway Desktop, where I can see all my changes listed in the Schema Model tab.

    2024-02-29 11_30_35-Custom Selection

    At this point, I realize that I’ve done something I don’t want. I don’t want the column to be named something. Maybe I misspelled it, or maybe I modeled it wrong. I can easily fix this in Flyway Desktop.

    At the top, you see there is a Save to Project and Apply to Database set of radio buttons.

    2024-02-29 14_17_05-

    This is a two way comparison, with the options reversing each other. The Save item will write database changes to the file system in the repo. The Apply will read the repo and make the changes in the database.

    In this case, you can see below that when I select the Apply radio button, I get the notification that my column will be deleted.

    2024-02-29 11_30_56-Highlight

    Once I click “Apply to Database” (the big blue button), these changes are made.

    If I check the database, I can see my column is removed, but my tables still exist, since I didn’t check their boxes on the left.

    I’ve undone a change. Now I can commit these two tables, if that’s what I need, or I can also add back a better named column and refresh this if needed.

    Try Flyway Enterprise out today. If you haven’t worked with Flyway Desktop, download it today. There is a free version that organizes migrations and paid versions with many more features.

    Video Walkthrough

    I made a quick video showing this as well. You can watch it below, or check out all the Flyway videos I’ve added:

  • A New Word, err Phrase: loss of backing

    loss of backing– n. an abrupt collapse of trust in yourself – having abandoned a resolution, surrendered to your demons, or squandered an opportunity you swore you’d take seriously this time – which resets your expectations and makes it that much harder to guarantee that your word is worth anything, even to yourself.

    Perhaps this is maturity, or maybe it’s giving up some strong sense of integrity. I prefer to think that I’m more kind to myself and accepting of my frailty. I rarely promise anything, to myself or others. I make best effort attempts, but I know that the world is chaotic and I’m imperfect. I can’t predict the future and I know that I might change my mind, circumstances might evolve, or perhaps my initial impetus to do something makes no sense.

    I try not to make too many resolutions, but make efforts to improve. I look for the DevOps way of experimenting and learning, accepting some failure, but not making absolute promises about things. Across the pandemic I also learned that sometimes I have to just take care of myself rather than continuously driving to some arbitrary goal.

    I miss days of working out, when I spent years not doing that. I make poor choices of food. I sometimes work too little or too hard, at least according to my standards. I sometimes need to take a break, and give myself a break, from life and other commitments, so I miss things, cancel plans, or just appreciate the break in life.

    Perhaps it’s age as well, but I don’t feel a loss of backing in myself.

    From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

  • Book Review: My Effin Life

    This is very off topic, but I’ve been a fan of Rush since I was about 12 years old. Their Moving Pictures

    This is a few thoughts on Geddy Lee’s memoir, My Effin’ Life.

    This is part of a series of book reviews I’ve done on my blog. You can see them all under the book reviews tag.

    Geddy is Jewish

    I might have known this, but I hadn’t really thought about it. The book opens with his thoughts on his parents, who were Holocaust survivors. The chapter of the book looks at his life as a child, memories of parents and sports growing, without a lot of music. The second talks religion and then the book goes into his parents’ journey and meeting in Poland, getting separated into concentration camps and being reunited.

    It’s a tough read for me, as I don’t love the WWII era, but it’s also amazing that they met and were reunited. There is some love there. This story must have affected Geddy, and he talks of going back to visit as an older man, taking his Mother with him.

    Early Rush

    I don’t think I knew how close Geddy and Alex were. They were friends in school, growing up and enjoying the music of the 60s. I didn’t realize how much of an influence some of the early bands (Cream, Yes, Eric Clapton) were for them. I also didn’t realize the forming, breaking, reforming that took place with a different drummer. I certainly didn’t know that the first Rush album was John Rutsey, who quit for various  reasons.

    The audition for Neil Peart is short, but it’s a fun story.

    A Long Marriage

    Like Bono, Geddy met his wife in school, and it’s been amazing they are together still.  They haven’t had, it appears, as smooth a marriage as Bono, partially from all the travel and distance that Geddy had with the band. He freely admits this, and also talks throughout the book about working on his marriage and getting counseling. An interesting admission.

    It also makes me realize I’d have been a poor rock star because I like being at home and spending time with my wife.

    The Journeys

    It’s interesting to hear about these three musicians growing and changing, being influenced, and partying hard. I saw some interviews at some point and thought these guys didn’t party as much as they were sports fans.

    Wrong. They partied a lot, and the book talks about their fondness for drugs, though not with the destruction and wildness (usually) of the Eagles, Motley Crue, Ozzy, etc.  They also found themselves influenced by Neil, who loved to read science fiction and fantasy, which influenced their music.

    They toured with Kiss and Led Zeppelin, things I hadn’t realized. I think most of my discovery of Rush was after Permanent Waves.

    It’s interesting to read how much they are on the road, and at the same time, how few places they went. They were mostly a US/Canada touring band, getting to Europe some, but not many other places. Neil didn’t like Japan, and is the shy one.

    I found the book interesting from a fan’s point of view, and I put some of the albums on as I read different parts of the book. I’d forgotten some music, and honestly, didn’t love the albums after Signals (as a 20-ish yr old) and stopped listening to them, but I’ve gone back and found I do enjoy some of the music, though the late 70s-80s remain my favorite era of the band.

    If you’re a fan, you might enjoy this book, learning a bit about the artists and their journey.