Learning – Curated SQL

Presenting for Impact

Published 2026-04-14 by Kevin Feasel

I like this topic from the legendary Steve Hughes. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, but he was always a thoroughly good guy. We both spoke at conferences back in the heyday of the SQL community, and although his journey has been tougher than most in recent years, he is still impacting the world in amazing ways.

Steve is hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, and asks about what we’ve learned from conference sessions, things which impacted us and how we work. It’s an interesting topic for two reasons – firstly, I enjoy giving conference presentations, and secondly, they’re really not my preferred way of learning.

Rob goes on to talk about conference sessions that caught his interest. One book that helped me considerably in my ability to present is Peter Cohan’s Great Demo! This is, admittedly, for sales presentations rather than technical presentations. However, I think it’s pretty straightforward to map most of the concepts to technical demos, and the advice in the book is great for getting your point across early and letting people make sure they are in the right room at the right time straight from the get-go.

Disclosing Testing Machines

Published 2026-03-13 by Kevin Feasel

Louis Davidson lays out an argument:

Something that every writer needs to be careful of is doing too much benchmarking-type work. In many of the software licensing agreements you have signed, you promise not to do that. But at the same time, you can generally give out performance numbers if you aren’t making claims about particular software, especially compared to another.

So, if you come up with an algorithm to do something in a better way than you have seen, it is nice to show the software, give the reader access to the code you are showing the performance of, and include the computer you are running it on.

Louis is referring to the DeWitt Clause, a fairly common clause in commercial database products that came about because Oracle was angry that David DeWitt made them look bad by providing a fair comparison to other platforms.

Comments closed

Where the Buck Stops

Published 2026-03-06 by Kevin Feasel

Louis Davidson talks slop:

I loathe the phrase AI Slop. I have said it before, I don’t like the phrase because it is generally attributed to some content that a person has posted. I blame the poster, not the generator. We all use AI these days, just like they used tractors to farm, computers to do accounting work, and CGI to produce movies. These are all tools.

But when I sign my name to something, it is really and truly mine. In this blog, I will discuss this and more. So as the title says, don’t blame AI, Google, a person’s teachers in grade school, nope. Blame the person who said, “This is good enough to put out in my name”, or in other words, the person in the byline. For this post and video, that is Louis Davidson.

I understand where Louis is going with this and it’s fair. When you publish something, the person ultimately responsible looks suspiciously like the picture on your driver’s license. But I think it can serve as a useful descriptive term for a category of garbage output without removing agency from the perpetrator.

Comments closed

Bluebox: An Evolving Sample Database for PostgreSQL

Published 2026-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Ryan Booz has a sample database:

Sure, there are datasets everywhere. Kaggle currently lists over 600,000 public datasets, but most of them are static CSV files that you load once and never touch again. Great for a one-time analysis, not so great for learning how a real database behaves over time. The Postgres Wiki lists a few dozen sample databases, too. And shoot, your shiny new AI coding buddy can help you create one if you want to put the time in.

The problem with most of these datasets is that they’re primarily static. If you’re lucky, some of the datasets might produce new data dumps once a month to keep things “current”. But the problem is that you can’t really practice query tuning if your data never changes. You can’t explore vacuum behavior when there are no updates. You can’t test monitoring tools when nothing is happening.

Click through for more information on Bluebox, as well as a Docker container containing several helpful tools and processes to make this data evolve over time.

Comments closed

T-SQL Tuesday 194 Round-Up

Published 2026-01-28 by Kevin Feasel

Louis Davidson has made a big mistake:

As I sit here, preparing to write my roundup post, I have not read anyone else’s post yet. I thought it would be good to introduce the idea first, recap to the other posts, then mine. I won’t share any detail of the mistake I shared, but I do want to mention something I included in my post. Types of mistakes. Mistakes of choice, and mistakes of accidents.

Read on for a nice round-up of a popular topic.

Comments closed

A Primer on Cognitive Perception

Published 2026-01-23 by Kevin Feasel

Paul Turley thinks about how we think:

You can be the greatest report designer on the planet, but if your report doesn’t meet the needs of the report consumer, it’s all for nothing. In this section, I break down the most important considerations for identifying your audience and their information needs. These are all factors to consider before you jump in and start designing your report.

Paul hits on quite a few of the foundational concepts around how humans visual stimuli and tells some interesting stories along the way.

Comments closed

Tips for Teaching Technical Topics

Published 2026-01-23 by Kevin Feasel

John Deardurff shares some advice:

After 25 years as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), one thing I have learned is that teaching technical content requires more than just subject‑matter expertise. Great technical instructors create an environment where learners feel comfortable, engaged, and motivated to explore complex concepts at their own pace.

Click through for ten such tips. I tend to follow seven of them pretty well, though the three around questions are where I’m weakest.

Comments closed

Misconceptions about Microsoft Certification Exams

Published 2026-01-22 by Kevin Feasel

Greg Low clears the air:

Over the years, I’ve taken a lot of Microsoft exams. I’ve also spent a lot of time writing exams for Microsoft exam providers. And while I’ve been doing that, I’ve spent a lot of time in forums where I’ve been checking out what people say about the exams.

What amazes me is the number of misconceptions that people have about these exams. So, I thought it would be helpful to write about the most common ones. Unlike what I see (but shouldn’t see) in the forums, I can’t discuss specific questions, but the majority of this is unrelated to the actual questions or the specific exams.

Read on to learn more. One thing Greg touches on en passant is quickly-updating information. This is one of the trickiest parts of Microsoft exams, especially in certain fields like AI: sometimes you’ll find a question that was written two versions of a product ago (i.e., 6 months ago) and now you have to guess whether you give the answer that is correct today or the answer that was correct then. I know they try to keep these exams up to date, but it’s hard to do against a moving target.

Comments closed

Creating a SQL Server 2025 Practice Environment

Published 2025-12-31 by Kevin Feasel

John Deardurff installs SQL Server 2025:

Microsoft SQL Server 2025 introduces major advancements in performance, security, and built‑in AI capabilities. Before you can start exploring its new features, you need to install it correctly. This guide walks you through the full installation process of SQL Server 2025, SQL Server Management Studio 22, and restoring the AdventureWorks2025 database to create a practice environment to test the new features and enhancements of this new release.

I was going to joke, “But John, what about your loyal Linux-using readers? How can we do this?” But instead, I’ll say that I’m glad that AdventureWorks is still alive and kicking. It is, on the whole, a nice demo database.

Comments closed

Blogging for Programmers

Published 2025-12-30 by Kevin Feasel

Louis Davidson has wrapped up a series of videos:

Today I finished up my first 24 videos in my Blogging for Programmers series of posts. I started out calling it vlogmas, but Tipmas definitely fits a lot better.

You can access the blogs about them here or go directly to the Youtube playlist here.
It was a lot of fun to do this series, and more will be coming in the new year at a much slower pace. I hope you enjoyed the series and/or learned something. The blogs each have a succinct version of the list of tips, so if you don’t have 5 – 10 minutes to watch a video, the main points are listed there.

If you’re interested in blogging, Louis has a lot of great tips across the 24 videos.

Comments closed

Category: Learning