Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Denver Dev Day Oct 2024 Slides

    Here are the slides from my talk today: CI in Azure DevOps

    If you have questions, please feel free to contact me (top menu above).

  • Should I Learn PostgreSQL

    I got asked this question recently:

    I constantly see PostgreSQL on Microsoft slides, email, ads, etc. My MCADAA exam started with an entire section on it. I’m trying to determine if it’s worth focused study and training time. Roughly how much of the Azure cloud database space does PostgreSQL occupy? Should I include it in my personal training program?

    It’s a good question, though I am assuming that MCADDA is the Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate cert. That page describing the exam only mentions Azure SQL (SQL Server), and not PostgreSQL, so while I think Azure SQL for PostgreSQL is good to learn, I think the cert preparation needs an update if that topic is on the exam.

    In any case, should you learn PostgreSQL?

    I’ll give you the DBA answer: it depends.

    Ask yourself some questions:

    • Does your org use PostgreSQL or are they planning to do so?
    • Are you going to stick with your company for a few more years?
    • Are there more things you should be learning in the area you do work now?
    • Are there things you should become more skilled at that your company values?
    • Do you know what the opportunities are for people that know PostgreSQL well?

    Depending on the answers, I may or may not recommend you spend time there. If you have other things to learn that might be better at your current job, either the job you have or one you might want, then focus there. If your company does (or doesn’t) value PostgreSQL, then that influences your choice as well.

    PostgreSQL is growing fast. DB-Engines shows growth across a few platforms, and PostgreSQL is doing well.

    2024-10_0140

    The StackOverflow developer survey shows similar results:

    2024-10_0141

    However, those are general results. Your specific situation is different. Think about it and ask the question above to lots of people.

  • A New Word: Hickering

    hickering – n.  the habit of falling hard for whatever pretty new acquaintance happens to come along, spending hours wallowing in the handful of details you can gather about them, connecting the dots into elaborate constellations, even imaging an entire future together – images that have no particular purpose, except that they’re kind fun to think about.

    This sounds like a teenage love story habit, which I see from kids I coach, or from my kids in the past.

    I’m not often enamored with new friends, and can be a bit wary or distant. I certainly get that from my parents, who were a little hesitant to add new friends. I do make new friends, and I find people very interesting in new ways, but I rarely feel hickering where I try to learn more about them.

    I tend to flow in life and enjoy the interactions without looking to make them more or less important than there are in the moment.

    From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

  • Using Copilot to help me update SQL Saturday

    An interesting AI experiment here with Copilot from GitHub in handling some code I don’t work with that often. Read on and watch.

    This is part of a series of experiments with AI systems.

    SQL Saturday Updates

    I keep the sqlsaturday.com site updated with code updates through GitHub. The repository is here: https://github.com/sqlsaturday/sqlsatwebsite

    I had hoped most organizers would fork this and use pull requests to update it, but surprisingly few data professionals are comfortable in Git. It’s fine, and I don’t mind.

    However, sometimes I get text updates that are a bit cumbersome to make. Recently I had someone send me a bunch of table text to update, and as I was editing, I realized that Copilot in VS Code had improved dramatically. You can watch below how it worked.

    Early in the Copilot days, I’d only get the next line added and sometimes the ending tag. Later, it started to suggest things, but from a guess standpoint, not reading what I’d pasted into the editor.

    Now, it’s really, really helpful.

    A cool way that AI can speed up your work, albeit one not a lot of data professionals might need.