DataGeek.blog

June 6, 2023 Featured

The Job Hunt So Far, and Thanks for the Support!

There is a part of me that just wants to spill everything about my job search in blog entries and LinkedIn posts. Some of this would be valuable information for readers, and it would certainly be cathartic for me. However, I don’t think it would be in my best interest when negotiating with potential employers.… Read the rest

May 30, 2023 Featured

Differences Between Db2 and MySQL

With a year of fairly extensive MySQL experience under my belt, and uncertainty as to which exciting direction my career will take me next, I wanted to take a moment to write about some of the differences between Db2 and MySQL at a fairly high level.… Read the rest

May 23, 2023 Featured

Db2 One Way Hashing as a Data Masking Solution

Database performance is heavily influenced by data volume and cardinality (or how unique that data may be).

It’s interesting to watch the look on someone’s face when this concept clicks. There is a look of understanding from a developer when she can extrapolate why SQL ran in seconds on a small, local, dockerized, database but the same SQL runs in minutes in a much larger QA environment.… Read the rest

May 10, 2023 Featured

Unexpected Career Turn

It’s amazing that I’ve had a 22-year career in tech, and until last week, I had never been laid off. Last week, I was a victim of the 20% layoffs at Shopify. Along with me came very talented people with years of experience there.… Read the rest

May 2, 2023 Featured

MySQL: Quotation Marks

My article on DB2 Basics: Quotation Marks has 962 views so far this year, so I thought it might be time to write a similar article on using quotation marks with MySQL.

General quotation marks

For the most part, you can use single and double quotation marks interchangeably in MySQL as long as you maintain consistency.… Read the rest

April 25, 2023 Featured

Scaling Relational Databases

“Relational databases don’t scale!”. This is the claim that database experts have heard over and over again, and yet we spend our careers scaling databases. I immediately translate this in my head to either “I threw hardware at the problem and it didn’t work!”… Read the rest

April 18, 2023 Featured

A year of switching RDBMS platforms from Db2 to MySQL

About 18 months ago, I decided that it was time to look for my next job. I had only been at my employer at the time for about 2 years, and had helped them through a couple of tough things they had hired me for.… Read the rest

April 11, 2023 Featured

Comparing Db2 and MySQL: Generating Values

I’m going to walk through the basic creation of auto-incrementing integer columns in MySQL and Db2 and point out some differences and similarities.

Functionality

Every relational database I have worked with has had a functionality for generating column values. The most basic generation is an incrementing integer.… Read the rest

February 28, 2023 Featured

Choosing the BEST RDBMS

When I started working as a DBA in 2001, the relational database management system choices were more limited and the choice itself was often left up to a system architect. Rarely did developers have a say, and even DBAs only had a say in whether they could support it or would have to hire people to support it.… Read the rest

January 31, 2023 Featured

MySQL’s “partial” Group By

This is one area that was not a surprise to me coming from Db2 to MySQL, as I’ve had to deal with people confused in the other direction for years. Essentially, MySQL allows a syntax for GROUP BY that Db2 and most RDBMSes do not allow.… Read the rest

January 26, 2023 Featured

Using ChatGPT to Write SQL

Working in technology, I’ve heard a number of things about ChatGPT from various news sources.

I was particularly interested hearing some teachers saying it was the end of being able to properly detect students cheating when writing papers. Then I heard a teacher talking about how this was the new ‘calculator’ that teachers need to learn how to leverage in their curriculums.… Read the rest