Top all-time · #284
Markus Winand
Personal blog · use-the-index-luke.com · on HN as MarkusWinandprogrammingdata
Markus Winand writes Use The Index, Luke!, a personal blog at use-the-index-luke.com about programming and data. Since 2010, 171 different Hacker News readers have linked it 301 times, most often “Use the Index, Luke – SQL Indexing and Tuning”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2024-12-10, and you can follow it by feed.
Often recommended · 20 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers recommend Markus Winand's free web book on SQL indexing and performance, and his SQL Performance Explained book. Commenters use it as a go-to resource for query tuning, indexing and pagination (keyset instead of OFFSET).
- Recommended for · 20 comments
- Commenters call it an excellent, great and really good resource for indexing and SQL performance; one calls it practically required reading and another says the
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
SQL indexing and tuning tutorial for developers. No unnecessary database details—just what developers need to know. Covers all major SQL databases.
Most-linked posts?
- Use the Index, Luke – SQL Indexing and Tuning55 people · 67 mentions · first linked 2018-04-11
- SQL Indexing and Tuning E-Book for Developers22 people · 25 mentions · first linked 2010-08-20
- Do Not Use Offset for pagination (2014)15 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2018-05-06
- We need tool support for keyset pagination12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2014-08-06
- SQL OFFSET is worse than keyset pagination8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2018-10-04
- /6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-03-21
- Index INCLUDE Clause: How it works and when to use it5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-04-30
- On Uber’s Choice of Databases5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-07-29
- /5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-02-27
- All you need to know about SQL performance4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-07-09
What Hacker News says?
I would suggest not denormalizing at all. The idea that joins are slow is a holdover from the bad old days when everyone used MySQL and MySQL sucked at joins. On a more robust DBMS, a normalized schema will often yield better performance than the denormalized one. Less time will be lost to disk I/O thanks to the more compact format, the working set will be smaller so the DBMS can make more efficient use of its cache…
Comment linking /
on “Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres”Submitted On Uber’s Choice of Databases as a story · 169 points
HN discussionThis have help me in discover extra powers of sql: http://modern-sql.com/ And http://use-the-index-luke.com/
Comment linking /
on “PostgreSQL 10 Released”Submitted What's left of NoSQL? as a story · 144 points
HN discussion> we are building monstrosities based around the theory of micro-services in the cloud. Kubernetes This isn't something I'm doing and none of the people I personally know are doing this (disclaimer: im not in SV or the "startup scene") > And query tuning isn't that difficult. Spend a few hours on this site and you will be better than 90% of devs out there: https://use-the-index-luke.com/ It used to be that companies…
Comment linking /
on “Things I wished more developers knew about databases”Submitted Results of the SQL Performance Quiz as a story · 133 points
HN discussionBut we aren't doing something simple like that, we are building monstrosities based around the theory of micro-services in the cloud. Kubernetes. It takes hours to get a development environment put together to try and reproduce / debug a problem. We are adding complexity instead of keeping things simple. And query tuning isn't that difficult. Spend a few hours on this site and you will be better than 90% of devs out…
Comment linking /
on “Things I wished more developers knew about databases”Submitted SQL Indexing and Tuning e-Book as a story · 130 points
HN discussionhttps://www.sqlite.org/queryplanner.html https://use-the-index-luke.com/ https://modern-sql.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What Skills to Acquire in 2020?”Submitted MongoDB is to NoSQL like MySQL to SQL - in the most harmful way as a story · 118 points
HN discussionSQL Performance Explained - Markus Winand - Excellent book that gets into the internals of what developers need to know about SQL and covers each part as it relates to the 4 major SQL databases (Oracle, SQL Server, Postgres, MySQL) - Also has an online version: http://use-the-index-luke.com/sql/table-of-contents The Code Book - Simon Singh - It's just a good read that covers cryptography and message hiding throughou…
Comment linking /sql/table-of-contents
on “Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?”Submitted The 3-minute SQL indexing quiz: Can you spot the five most common mistakes? as a story · 108 points
HN discussionDon't forget to use Partial Indexes on jobs/tasks tables with queries like WHERE status = 'pending' More: https://use-the-index-luke.com/sql/where-clause/partial-and-...
Comment linking /sql/where-clause/partial-and-filtered-indexes
on “Do you really need Redis? How to get away with just PostgreSQL”Submitted MySQL is to SQL like MongoDB to NoSQL as a story · 97 points
HN discussionhttps://use-the-index-luke.com/ - great resource for various database products.
Comment linking /
on “SQL: One of the most valuable skills”Submitted Big News in Databases as a story · 95 points
HN discussionThis is such a great thread, I'm excited to begin reading quite a few of the linked blogs (such as this one: https://acoup.blog/ ). These ones are some of my favorites: - www.wall.org/~aron/blog/ (physics, theology, history, philosophy) - http://xahlee.info/ (math, emacs, keyboards, etc.) - https://matt.might.net/articles/ (academy, compsci, etc.) - https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ (programming, companies, etc.) - ht…
Comment linking /blog
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Myth: Select * is Bad as a story · 87 points
HN discussionNice post, though for the indexing "introduction-deep-dive" I would still recommend newbies to look at https://use-the-index-luke.com/ .
Comment linking /
on “Things to know about databases”Submitted SQL Indexing and Tuning E-Book for Developers as a story · 52 points
HN discussionAlso eventually https://use-the-index-luke.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?”Submitted The analysis of 28,000 results suggests that hardly anybody gets indexes right as a story · 46 points
HN discussion> to investigate and start using LATERAL JOIN And modern SQL at all - http://use-the-index-luke.com/blog/2015-02/modern-sql
Comment linking /blog/2015-02/modern-sql
on “PostgreSQL Exercises”Submitted Everybody thinks SQL joins are slow-is it because MySQL doesn't have hash joins? as a story · 41 points
HN discussionhttp://use-the-index-luke.com/ This is a really good resource for understanding how the queries you do relate to the actual actions that the database engine takes.
Comment linking /
on “Why You Should Never Use MongoDB”Submitted Get to know your ORM and take control of joins. as a story · 40 points
HN discussionhttp://use-the-index-luke.com/ is a great online book (free) targeted at programmers and developers. It's practically required reading in my opinion.
Comment linking /
on “Why You Should Never Use MongoDB”Submitted The Second Power of SQL Indexing as a story · 40 points
HN discussionI'm a big fan of Markus Winand: https://use-the-index-luke.com/ I've got a bunch of SQL resources I've collected on my blog that you might find helpful: https://simonwillison.net/tags/sql/
Comment linking /
on “Become Shell Literate”Submitted Free e-Book for Index Based SQL Tuning as a story · 23 points
HN discussion
