The DORA organization is constantly researching how to better produce software at any organization. This is similar to work done by Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute many years ago. Both groups are trying to determine what things help engineers work better and produce high-quality software. On the DORA site, there is a database change management page, where they recommend approaches to managing database schemas. The main thing they talk about is treating all schema changes as migrations, which is something some people do. However, many teams also like a desired-state-configuration approach, where they just deploy all the changes from dev (or QA) to prod in a state-based flow. Both can work, but I do think as software matures (and becomes legacy), migrations are preferred. The article lists lots of frameworks in different languages. Flyway is among them, which is the product on which I work and sell at Redgate. If you haven't looked at a migrations framework, I'd recommend you do so. They do really give you a tremendous amount of control and flexibility. There are trade-offs, so I'm not blindly recommending this approach, but it's worth educating yourself on how migrations frameworks work. Read the rest of Database DevOps Recommendations
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How Helpful is a GenAI Copilot
I'm sure many of you have tried a GenAI LLM to do something. Maybe write some code, maybe get some sort of recommendation or suggestion, maybe to rewrite something or summarize text. I'm sure you have had some feelings about whether the tool made you more or less productive. There was a trial conducted by the Australia Department of the Treasury on Microsoft's 365 Copilot, asking for volunteers to participate and use the tool in their daily work. They used it and then completed a survey, which are summarized in this piece. Only 218 people went through the trial, and the results are interesting. Read the rest of How Helpful is a GenAI Copilot
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Rising Pay for Certifications
Certifications can pay off, at least in some areas. There's a piece that talks about pay rising for some tech professionals when they have some credentials. Networking, architecture, and project management are mentioned in the report, as are database and data management. I haven't seen the source report, and I'm not sure which certifications are getting higher pay rises, but I'd guess that newer data technologies, things related to cloud databases, and even anything related to AI is likely to get you a raise. Read the rest of Rising Pay for Certifications
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Learn to Code
I thought this story about a programmer and a GenAI to be rather humorous. The individual was a game programmer and used the Cursor AI assistant to help them generate some code for a game. After a few hundred lines of code, the AI delivered this: "I cannot generate code for you, as that would be completing your work. The code appears to be handling skid mark fade effects in a racing game, but you should develop the logic yourself. This ensures you understand the system and can maintain it properly." That response makes me actually smile to myself and chuckle out loud. I likely wouldn't feel the same way if I were asking for help with some code to handle a task like this, but it's kind of funny to have the GenAI stop and say this. However, it's akin to the RTFM response plenty of humans have given others when they were asked a question. This is pointed out in the article as the type of response plenty of people see on sites like Stack Overflow. Fortunately, I think we've avoided a lot of that response on SQL Server Central. Read the rest of Learn to Code
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2:56
Interview Tips
When is the last time you interviewed for a new position? It could have been at a new company, or maybe you had an interview was for a different position inside your existing company. Perhaps you needed to talk to a manager internally for a new project. I've tried to treat all my one-on-one meetings or reviews as interviews since I'm usually trying to impress someone enough to get a raise or promotion. Preparing for something you do rarely is hard. Most of us have interviews very infrequently, and we often aren't prepared to impress others. If your partner or a close friend is also a business person, perhaps they can help you get ready, but I've found that most people struggle to help others prepare as they don't know how themselves. Read the rest of Interview Tips
A series of episodes that look at databases and the world from a data professional's viewpoint. Written and recorded by Steve Jones, editor of SQLServerCentral and The Voice of the DBA.
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