The Human Factor (03-18-2023 DBW)

Database Weekly for March 18, 2023 Problems displaying this newsletter? [View online](. [Database Weekly]( The Complete Weekly Roundup of SQL Server News by SQLServerCentral.com Hand-picked content to sharpen your professional edge Editorial  The Human Factor A week ago I was in Pasadena attending the [SCaLE 20x conference]( a gathering of many different open-source communities discussing the technologies and platforms that draw them together. I was fortunate enough to hear some excellent presentations on PostgreSQL and give two talks as well. After the first round of talks on Friday morning a friend walked over and asked if I had heard about the bank Silicon Valley Bank failure yet. "Yes," I replied, "I have a lot of friends in the open-source community that I'm sure will be impacted. The next few days will certainly be difficult to watch as I think of what's ahead for them." Then on Tuesday, just a few days later, OpenAI announced ChatGPT-4, a significantly updated multimodal system with increased AI capabilities. At many levels it is impressive to see what can be done with these new capabilities. For instance, I enjoyed seeing Marco Russo from [SQLBI.com]( have a bit of a sparing match with the new model [trying write DAX code](. Just days apart, these two events will have far-reaching effects on many aspects of the technology communities we are a part of. You know the saying, "life comes at you fast!" Don't worry. This isn't an editorial about bank collapses or how AI is going to take over our jobs and the world. (Whew!) Instead, I was struck by a mostly overlooked similarity in each story. Both headlines, the SVB collapse and ChatGPT-4, can't be separated from the importance of human experience. Neither of them can be separated from real people, with an understanding of real systems, using real data. Likewise, the experience that we each bring to the table helps us understand if a course correction is needed in a specific situation, or if the information we're receiving is missing a critical piece. When we take it one step further and begin to use that experience to teach others how do to the same thing, the overall system improves and our community gets stronger. As a data professional involved in a few different technical communities, that encourages me tremendously. I see so many examples of folks giving generously of their time and experience to help others learn and grow, both in-person and online. The conferences I've had an opportunity to attend so far this year have been life giving, well run, and well attended. I'm excited to see how things continue to evolve for the remainder of 2023. What about you? - If you're physically able, have you started to get involved with a user group or conference again? - Have you offered to share what you've learned in the last few months with others at work? - Have you considered recording a video demonstrating that new trick you've learned and sharing it with the world? - Have you considered contributing a blog post to either [T-SQL Tuesday]( or [PGSQL Phriday]( sometime this year? We may not be able to solve all of the world's problems or stop banks from collapsing, but working together and sharing our experience with others can help improve the human side of the equation, which in turn increases the likelihood of building successful, sustainable systems we enjoy. Let's get at it, together!  Ryan Booz [Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums](  The Weekly News All the headlines and interesting SQL Server information that we've collected over the past week, and sometimes even a few repeats if we think they fit. Vendors/3rd Party Products [How do your DevOps plans really measure up?]( Redgate works alongside thousands of organizations around the world, helping them to assess, identify, and improve their Database DevOps processes. We’ve found that many people believe they’re practicing DevOps but when they dig deeper, realize they’re missing key processes that can offer huge improvements, and deliver value quicker to the wider business. [Why a monitoring tool is an essential tool for growing server estates]( Monitoring large server estates with a mix of database platforms can be a daunting task. This articles highlights why a database monitoring tool is a necessity and not a luxury. [Automatically Tracking and Deploying Static Data in Flyway Enterprise]( Static data is often required for the basic functioning of a database and any dependent applications. Therefore, it's vital that we can track this static data to understand how, when, and why it changed, and that we include any static data changes in our database deployments. Flyway Enterprise will now do both tasks automatically. AI/Machine Learning/Cognitive Services [Getting the Right Answer from ChatGPT]( From O'Reilly Radar - Insight A couple of days ago, I was thinking about what you needed to know to use ChatGPT (or Bing/Sydney, or any similar service). It’s easy to ask it questions,... Administration of SQL Server [The Importance of Naming Constraints in SQL Server]( From Curated SQL Eitan Blumin gives everything a name: This article was published by Aaron Bertrand a few years ago, talking about system-named constraints in SQL Server. The…Continue readingThe Importance of Naming... 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[…] Computing in the Cloud (Azure, Google, AWS) [Tips for AKS Storage Provisioning]( From Curated SQL Joji Varghese gives us a hand: In an Azure Kubernetes (AKS) cluster, Pods can access physical storage resources such as disks or volumes using Persistent…Continue readingTips for AKS Storage... Conferences, Classes, Events, and Webinars [The future of AI in solving database challenges]( The conversation around Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a new subject to the database space, but the recent rise in machine learning tools like ChatGPT have sparked increased focus on new ways to simplify existing DBA challenges. Join Redgate’s own DevOps Advocate, Steve Jones, along with webinar guests Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman (Principal Cloud Solution Architect, Microsoft) and Brian Randell (Product Marketing Director, Github) to discuss how AI could help manage complex database ecosystems. [Children at Technical Conferences Part II]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs Nearly 10 years ago I wrote a blog post about havi... [How I evaluate personal safety at tech conferences]( From SQLGene – Learning SQL Slowly How I think about safety at the events has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. When I was young and unmarried, I didn’t think about it at all.... [Call to Action for Female Speakers to Submit to EightKB]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs EightKB is a wonderfully ran conference by my friends Mark Wilkinson (T | B), Anthony Nocentino (T | B), Andrew Pruski (T | B), and The post Call to Action... The... Data Visualisation [the true beauty of a communications makeover]( From Storytelling with Data Clients look to us to help them make their charts and graphs look better. That's what most folks think "data visualization" means in our world today. Though that is... 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[How to Automate Cross-Platform Database Development]( From Product learning – Redgate Software In order to focus on their primary task of developing databases, the development team need to automate as many as possible of the routine tasks that are essential for... Hardware [Pi-Powered Microcontroller is a Lego Astronaut with an RGB Suit]( From Tom's Hardware US FigPi runs on an RP2040 chip and has multiple Stem... Oracle/PostgreSQL/MySQL/other RDBMS [Retrieving MySQL data from within Python]( Applications of all types commonly access MySQL to retrieve, add, update, or delete data. The applications might be written in Python, Java, C#, or another programming language. The approach you take when accessing MySQL will depend on the programming language you’re using and the connector you choose for interfacing with the database. Whatever approach you take, the same basic principles generally apply to each environment. You must establish a connection to the database and then issue the commands necessary to retrieve or modify the data. [Are PostgreSQL memory parameters magic?]( From Simple Talk Configuration parameters are the most mythical creatures in the world of PostgreSQL. Ordinary PostgreSQL users often do not know that PostgreSQL configuration parameters exist, let alone what they are... Performance Tuning SQL Server [Tuning SQL Server Queries With Indexed Views Lecture]( From Erik Darling Data Tuning SQL Server Queries With Indexed Views Lecture Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering... [Tuning SQL Server Queries With Computed Columns Demo]( From Erik Darling Data Tuning SQL Server Queries With Computed Columns Demo Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering... [Tuning SQL Server Queries With Computed Columns: Gotchas With Scalar UDFS]( From Erik Darling Data Tuning SQL Server Queries With Computed Columns: Gotchas With Scalar UDFS Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my... [Tuning SQL Server Queries With Filtered Indexes: Some Gotchas With Parameters And Variables]( From Erik Darling Data Tuning SQL Server Queries With Filtered Indexes: Some Gotchas With Parameters And Variables Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll... [Tuning SQL Server Queries With Computed Columns Lecture]( From Erik Darling Data Tuning SQL Server Queries With Computed Columns Lecture Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering... PowerPivot/PowerQuery/PowerBI [Power BI Group By Columns]( From Curated SQL Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari bundle things together: In Power BI you can specify the unique identifier of a column value by using another column…Continue readingPower BI Group By... [Writing DAX with ChatGPT-4 – Unplugged #50]( From Sqlbi A special unplugged video where we write DAX measures with ChatGPT-4! Read more about the “unplugged” format: #unplugged #chatgpt #gpt4 #dax [Using a Star Schema for Power BI Reporting]( From MSSQL Tips I often hear the star schema is the best way to structure data for a Power BI model, I'm not familiar with this concept, what does this mean? [Art of the Possible with Power Platform and Azure Synapse]( From Guy in a Cube What happens when you combine Power BI, Power Apps and Azure Synapse Analytics? MAGIC! Join Gaston Cruz as he shows a way to bring the Power Platform together with... 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[Tips for Debugging your DAX Code]( From eHansalytics When trying to get your DAX measures to work correctly, there are a number of tools you can use to debug, which I will briefly mention, but not go... [Incremental Backup of PBIX Files]( From Excelerator BI I do a lot of Power BI model and report development; maybe you do too. There’s nothing worse than spending an hour or so developing your model only to... [Understanding Group By Columns in Power BI]( From Sqlbi How Power BI uses the Group By Columns attribute of a column and how you can leverage it in specific scenarios. Product Reviews and Articles [Book Review: SQL Server 2022]( This book aims to explain the new features in SQL Server 2022, how does it fare? [Microsoft Loop App to Launch in Public Preview This Month]( From Petri IT Knowledgebase Microsoft is getting ready to launch its Microsoft... Professional Development [Finding guidance]( From Curious..about data We all need guidance as we make our way through our careers and our lives. Some people are blessed with the right folks who can offer that by way... Python [Working with Remote Jupyter Books in Azure Data Studio]( From Curated SQL Steve Hughes reaches across the internet: When working with Azure Data Studio and its support of Jupyter books, you will find there is an option…Continue readingWorking with Remote Jupyter... [Customizing Shiny Apps with shinydashboard]( From Curated SQL Mandy Norrbo isn’t satisfied with the defaults: Using {shinydashboard} is great for creating dashboard prototypes with a header-sidebar-body layout. You can quickly mock up a…Continue readingCustomizing Shiny Apps with... [Building, Deploying, Sharing a Remote Jupyter Book in Azure Data Studio]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs When working with Azure Data Studio and its support of Jupyter books, you will find there is an option for remote Jupyter books. As shown in the image below,... The... [How to add text to images using Python]( From Purple Frog Systems In this blog post, I will be showing how to add text to an image in Python. I used this code to generate hundreds of images with different text... R Language [The apply() Family in R]( From Curated SQL Steven Sanderson operates over a list of operators over lists: In this post I will talk about the use of the R functions apply(), lapply(), sapply(), tapply(), and vapply() with examples.…Continue readingThe apply() Family in... SQL [SQL WHERE IS NOT NULL for SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE]( From MSSQL Tips In this article, we look at how to use IS NOT NULL for a WHERE clause in SQL along with examples of how this can be used for SELECT,... T-SQL and Query Languages [New functions in SQL Server 2022 - BIT_COUNT, GET_BIT and SET_BIT]( From MSSQL Tips Learn about the new functions BIT_COUNT, GET_BIT, AND SET_BIT in SQL Server 2022 and how these functions could be used. [End of Month in Snowflake and SQL Server]( From Curated SQL Kevin Wilkie is ready for that end-of-month paycheck: When you work with data, you’ll probably need to work with dates at least once a month.…Continue readingEnd of Month in... [Working with Dates at the End of the Month]( From Sherpa of Data When you work with data, you’ll probably need to work with dates at least once a month. That is the nature of the beast. Today, let’s compare working with... Tech News [ChatGPT Smartwatch Is Powered by Raspberry Pi]( From Tom's Hardware US YouTube channel MayLabs used a Raspberry Pi 4B to ... [These Blu-Ray Discs Are Guaranteed to Last 100 Years]( From Tom's Hardware US Pioneer's BDR-WX01DM optical disc drive and IPS-BD... [GitHub to Start Rolling Out Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) to All Contributors Today]( From Petri IT Knowledgebase Microsoft’s owned GitHub has recently announced that it will soon... Theory and Design [Getting Out of Character]( In this article, Joe Celko gives us a history of the different character sets that are used in computing and how that can pertain to your usage in relational databases. Some of these you may have never heard of! Virtualization and Containers/Kubernetes [RBAC with Kubernetes]( From Curated SQL Mercy Bassey locks down some containers: Have you been searching for a way to manage your resources effectively in Kubernetes? Why not consider Kubernetes Role-Based…Continue readingRBAC with Kubernetes XML, XPATH and XQUERY [A Critique of XML]( From Curated SQL Andy Leonard isn’t XML’s biggest fan: If you are sending me (or some other hapless victim data engineer) lots of data that resides in a stable schema…Continue readingA Critique of XML  [RSS Feed]( This email has been sent to {EMAIL}. To be removed from this list, please click [here](. If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the webmaster@sqlservercentral.com. This newsletter was sent to you because you signed up at SQLServerCentral.com. Note: This is not the SQLServerCentral.com daily newsletter list, and unsubscribing to this newsletter will not stop you receiving the SQL Server Central daily newsletters. If you want to be removed from that list, you can follow the instructions on the daily newsletter. ©2019 Redgate Software Ltd, Newnham House, Cambridge Business Park, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, United Kingdom. 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