Top all-time · #3689
SQLskills
Company blog · sqlskills.com/blogsprogrammingdata
SQLskills is the company blog at sqlskills.com, writing about programming and data. Since 2009, 20 different Hacker News readers have linked it 20 times. The last post was in 2020, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link SQLskills posts as references on SQL Server internals and performance, such as GUID primary keys, index fragmentation, filtered statistics, and the query optimizer.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
With training and consulting from SQLskills, you’ll proactively drive your team’s success, rather than just reacting to your database issues.
What Hacker News says?
> Do a query, get back a handle to a file that you can treat just like you opened it yourself Things are a bit more complex. For one, the trivial problem of client vs. server host. The DB cannot return a handle (a FD) from the server, because it has no meaning on the host running the app. The second problem is that any file manipulation must conform to the DB semantics for transactions, locking, rollback and recover…
Comment linking /blogs/paul/filestream-garbage-collection/
on “SQLite small blob storage: 35% Faster Than the Filesystem”Submitted Disk space is cheap… That's not the point as a story · 46 points
HN discussionI recall reading something about this in the PostgreSQL mailing list, message written in 2016 but may still be relevant https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20151222124018.bee10b6... “There's no substance to these claims. Chasing the links around we finally find this article: http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/kimberly/guids-as-primary-key... which makes the reasonable argument that random primary keys can cause perfor…
Comment linking /blogs/kimberly/guids-as-primary-keys-andor-the-clustering-key/
on “Be Careful with UUID or GUID as Primary Keys”Submitted Hi, I'm Paul Randal, and I'm an alcoholic as a story · 1 points
HN discussionFor Microsoft SQL server, I recommend reading all things what Brent Ozar [1] has to say There is also another blog from Dr. DMV on SQL Server performance [2] [1] https://www.brentozar.com/ [2] http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/glenn/category/dmv-queries/
Comment linking /blogs/glenn/category/dmv-queries/
on “Ask HN: What is the best online resource to learn advanced SQL?”Submitted SQL requires lookup value to go up the tree when nonclustered key is non-unique as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSQLServer uses it from version 2005 til 2012 to create databases snapshots in order to run DBCC CHECKDB (consistency check). So for actually a critical feature of MSSQL. I suppose this was the reason why ReFS was not supported for SQL data disks. It seems they are not used anymore since sql 2014. See for example http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/issues-around-dbcc-check...
Comment linking /blogs/paul/issues-around-dbcc-checkdb-and-the-use-of-hidden-database-snapshots/
on “Git for Windows accidentally creates NTFS alternate data streams”Submitted You Shouldn’t Use an Intel Xeon Silver Processor for SQL Server as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> SQL Server is one of the few commercial DB's that does real nested transactions Not sure where this myth keeps coming from, but no, it does not: https://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/a-sql-server-dba-myth-a...
Comment linking /blogs/paul/a-sql-server-dba-myth-a-day-2630-nested-transactions-are-real/
on “PostgreSQL is the Database Management System of the Year 2024”Submitted In defense of transactional replication as an HA technology as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> Coming from pretty heavy background in MSSQL internals, this article is really great. Do you know of any good resources for the undocumented function fn_dblog? I'm looking to understand the structure of RowLog Contents and Log Record in different Operations/Contexts to reconstruct DDL/DML. http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/inside-the-storage-engin... is a good example but is really just an introduction.
Comment linking /blogs/paul/inside-the-storage-engine-anatomy-of-a-record/
on “Introduction to PostgreSQL physical storage”Submitted You guys still use SQL Server 2000? Really? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYou're optimizing for write, but the performance gain is negligible in comparison to the performance loss due to index fragmentation and slow joins. Also, on "storage is cheap": http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/kimberly/disk-space-is-cheap/
Comment linking /blogs/kimberly/disk-space-is-cheap/
on “Mistakes Beginners Make When Working with Databases”Submitted SQL Community salaries - International markets included as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWant to learn SQL Server from the best? Check out SQL Skills: https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion-even... They are the best and most comprehensive. Not associated with them, but a long time, satisfied customer.
Comment linking /sql-server-training/immersion-events-schedule/
on “Ask HN: Any “bootcamps” or courses for intermediate/advanced people?”Submitted Why you should not shrink your ms-sql data files as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere is a nice post: SQLskills procs to analyze data skew and create filtered statistics [1] that links to a session where statistics skew is explained and some scripted solutions provided to kind of cover more rows with filtered stats. [1]: http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/kimberly/sqlskills-procs-anal...
Comment linking /blogs/kimberly/sqlskills-procs-analyze-data-skew-create-filtered-statistics/
on “How Does the SQL Server Query Optimizer Work?”There is a good reason why a GUID/UUID or the like should never be used as a database primary key when records are regularly added. The short answer is that the records are usually stored in the primary key order (clustered index) and every new record being inserted at a random location in the middle of this order rather than just added at the end causes problems. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/583001/improv…
Comment linking /BLOGS/KIMBERLY/post/GUIDs-as-PRIMARY-KEYs-andor-the-clustering-key.aspx
on “Obfuscate Your Company”200ms seems like a long time to me. From what I know, if your database takes longer than 100ms to return a query, theres something wrong[1] and CDNs have pretty much solved that "I need to get this static file around the world quickly." With just an song id, with S3/Cloudfront and [db of choice] I don't think it would be hard to deliver a song in less than 200ms (to the continental US atleast). [1] http://www.sqlski…
Comment linking /blogs/paul/are-io-latencies-killing-your-performance/
on “Spotify as a simple case study in making something people want”I can give one example when SQL Server was purchased by Microsoft from Sybase. Overnight literally everyone claimed to be an expert. I did some research including asking the Microsoft employees I knew. It turned out there was one lady who did all the training at Sybase and who taught the Microsoft employees about their new database. That lady Kalen Delaney spoke highly of a husband and wife consulting team. The husb…
Comment linking /about/meet-the-team/
on “Ask HN: Where do you go to find reliable, trustworthy information online?”
