Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

The Book of Redgate: We Value Teams

This value is something that I still hear today: our best work is done in teams. On the facing page, there is a short description of what this means.

I do think that teams are very helpful, especially when building software. Our products aren’t simple inside, and they have a lot of pieces and parts assembled to try and keep tasks simple for you.

Working in teams is good, and remembering that the hierarchy matters is good. This has helped us in the past, though I find myself reminding people that the company matters more than the team. At times, teams seem to think they shouldn’t be disturbed or altered. I’ve also see people resistant to working as individuals at times. The team is important, but we can work separately to get things done.

I find many companies not stressing teams, and individuals not wanting to work with others. I get that sometimes it can be comfortable to work on our own, at our pace, the way we want, but I also know that teams allow us to get more done than we would individually.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

September 19, 2025
A Prompt AI Experiment

Prompt AI released recently and I decided to try a few things with the tool that might help me in database work. I’ve had to do this task, but I had a customer recently ask me about this as well. They were wondering where they were short FKs.

This post showed what I tried with Prompt AI.

This is part of a series of experiments with AI systems. This is part of a series of posts on SQL Prompt. You can see all my posts on SQL Prompt under that tag.

Help Me Query the Database

In a recent post, I looked at the MSSQL agent in VS Code to query my database. I decided to try a few things with Prompt AI, working inline. First, I connected to the database and then I asked a question of the AI: who hit the most home runs.

From the time I shot the video, I had updated Prompt, and possibly the AI got smarter, because this was the result: I had a qood query.

I wanted more, so I asked for seasons. You can see the prompt at the bottom, but seasons were added.

Click Accept and then run it and I get the correct answer.

How nice would this be for some of the BI analysts to use this to get work done?

Getting Help Fixing the Database

In this db, there aren’t any FKs. I decided to (poorly) ask about this.

Note the misspelling. One of the amazing things is the AI recognizes little errors, just as a human would, and corrects them. I get an OK result, but not great.

I rewrite my prompt to ask which ones “should” have FKs. I get this:

Helpful, but I don’t want to work through this list.

I get this. No code, and I feel like I’m talking to a junior dev who is either trying to avoid work or doesn’t have the understanding that I want work done. I’ll try again.

I get something I can use. I wouldn’t likely create all these at once, I’d test things, I might start to add these as migration scripts I can deploy over time, after I’ve verified this isn’t going to break an app or cause issues. Or there aren’t already data issues.

Still, this is one of those nice time savings for me writing a script to try and create these or working through time one by one. Now I can just set up tests.

Or ask Prompt AI to help

Summary

The new features in Prompt AI let you keep coding inline, but add some AI help to what you do. I’ve seen some neat things, and some frustrating ones, but overall, it’s helpful to produce code.

If you haven’t tried SQL Prompt, download the eval and give it a try. I think you’ll find this is one of the best tools to increase your productivity writing SQL.

Video Walkthrough

This isn’t exactly what is above, because LLMs aren’t deterministic.

September 17, 2025
In Memory of Andrew Clarke, AKA Phil Factor

One of the parts of getting older that really sucks is I seem to attend more funerals than weddings. It’s a sad fact of file, and this was one of the reasons Andy Warren and I created SQL Memorial, to keep those we’ve known close to our hearts.

In a few internal posts, and a few external ones, I keep seeing this picture:

It’s one I took in 2016 with a selfie stick I’d gotten just before my trip to Redgate. There are a lot of familiar faces in here, but this was the content team at that time with myself, Grant, Tony (far right) and Andrew somehow in the center.

This is a memorable picture and likely taken after lunch when Tony, Andrew, and I had visited a pub somewhere in the Cambridge area. I will treasure those memories of us sitting together, chatting about various work or non-work topics and enjoying a break from the office. Those chaps were some of the few that would have a pint at lunch, and I was pleased to be invited along.

My most fond memory of Andrew was on one of the Redgate outings, where we’d taken the entire Marketing department out for a day. I happened to be in Cambridge and we visited a small printing museum in a little town, we had to draw a self portrait, and here’s my incredibly poor effort:

The thing that struck me from that day was how Andrew was quite the Renaissance man. He was interested in everything, how technology worked, including the old printing presses. He delved into how books used to be produced and could give me an education of some of the historical aspects of both how to bind a book as well as the history of some famous books from ancient times.

Perhaps one of the more interesting things we discussed was life in the country. Andrew had a small farm where he raised some crops and animals. He had an old water wheel he was refurbishing that would either produce power to grind crops into flour, or it would be retrofitted to produce electricity. He explained to me how this horizontal wheel in the river would be placed to capture energy.

Over the years we had many chances to discuss various topics. He even came to PASS a few times, one of which I captured below. That’s Andrew on the left.

Of course, there’s never enough time with friends. Andrew lived an amazing and long life, but it sadly ended before any of us who knew him expected it.

I feel lucky that I had the moments and memories with Andrew that I did.

September 15, 2025
A New Word: Anderance

anderance – n. the awareness that your partner perceives the relationship from a totally different angle than you – spending years looking at a different face across the table, listening for cues in a different voice = an odd reminder that no matter how much you have in common, you’re still in love with different people.

I often think of anderance since I spend a lot of time with my wife, in daily life, traveling, communicating with phones. I sometimes wonder why she sees things in my differently than I do. Maybe she sees more or less, maybe she has a different view of me than I do.

I realize that who I think I am, and who she thinks I am are a bit different. Not a lot, but a bit.

Probably the same for her.

It’s been 30 years, and it’s still amazing. And I still learn things about her, about me, and about us.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

September 12, 2025