Michael J. Swart

I list some blog topics that I don’t plan to complete.

I have a rule of thumb that I try to follow when writing. If I can write something in a simpler way I do. If I can cut out words, sentences or whole paragraphs without altering the meaning, I do. Sometimes the thing I’m left with is so short, simple and straightforward that I wouldn’t even bother tweeting it.

For example, a couple weeks ago, after a shortening revision, I wound up with “Index your tables properly while designing databases”. That’s not the title, that’s the whole thing. Something so short and simple doesn’t deserve a blog post and so neither did the long version of that post!

So I’m cleaning house. I want to post a bunch of ideas that were never good enough on their own to make the cut.

Knowledge Philanthropy

Those two words sound great together don’t they? I’ve always felt like more of a knowledge consumer. In fact this blog you’re reading is an effort on my part to “give back”. But no matter what, I’ve always felt like I’ve received way more than I’ve given.

Your Database is Not Perfect

But it doesn’t need to be. It needs to be stable, scalable, and easy to maintain. It needs to meet any requirements you care to define. Anything after that is going to be a harder sell.

Measuring the Effects of Fragmentation

An interesting experiment I started, but it led me past DBA-land into SAN Admin land and I was not comfortable saying anything with authority here.

Q & A for questions I made up:

I must have written the following while half asleep and I have absolutely no idea what it could mean:

ala Esquire: Fake… subtly bad advice “Jesus Bless You” Generic advice that gets suddenly personal: Why do delis always give pickles with sandwiches?” “Ordering Pheasant”

Quotestring — Safe way to use Data as Code?

No, I wouldn’t count on it.

Hey bud!

The following was inspired by comments at “Last Word On Scans” It was drawn for drawing’s sake.

Range Scans on Multicolumn Keys

Say you have a table with an index on (LastName, FirstName) and you want to select all the rows which sort between “Lucas, George” and “Spielberg, Stephen”. I’ve never been able to find straightforward syntax that results in a query plan with a simple range scan.

I’m a Paul White Fan

Not very many of my friends and family hold up their side of the conversation when I talk about databases. But at the PASS Summit, there are hundreds of people who will! And I think that’s why I love it. I always intended to write about my experience at 2012’s summit, but I couldn’t think of anything meaningful to write. I knew that Paul White’s session was a highlight for me, but I didn’t have much else to say.

On Being Competent

Billy Joel described himself once like this:

“… I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary. I am, as I’ve said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.”

That particular quote probably struck me at a time when I wasn’t feeling particularly perfect enough at what I do.

UNDELETE

Is here! Oh actually, april fools. It’s actually called Point in time restore, and it’s been available for a while. And the syntax is a little different…