Sr. Staff Technical Content Engineer @CockroachDB, Best-Selling Author, Conference Speaker, YouTube Content Creator.

Joined March 2009
2,138 Photos and videos
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I miss this!!!!!
3D artists today have no idea how to build this
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What happens to your database that you just can't kill when you suffer a regional failure? Find out on today's episode of SELECT STAR! youtube.com/watch?v=yP-3tV0Q…
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I started off with Java 1.1, which was the material in Java In A Nutshell, 1st Edition. This was the version that had AWT but not Swing. And I also had a copy of Visual J , and was REALLY frustrated that half of the code in that book DIDN'T WORK!!!!
When did you join the Java gang? ☕ Was it love at first JDK download? 😍 #Java30Countdown #Java30
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Are you using .NET and need to use an entity management toolkit? Then checkout how ADO.NET ties in with CockroachDB on today's episode of SELECT STAR! youtube.com/watch?v=2n-lFykw…

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I had a copy once with my copy of Windows NT. It had the coffee cup logo. It could run maybe half of the code in Java In A Nutshell.
Dig the past, find surprises. 👀 #Java30Countdown #Java30
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Greg L. Turnquist retweeted
An inside look at how CockroachDB leverages the Network Time Protocol (NTP) along with software-based compensation techniques to achieve reliable time coordination across database nodes. cockroachlabs.com/blog/clock…
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In T-5 hours, @robreid_io will be joining us to talk about migrating your apps to the database you just can’t kill, along with a host of other topics. Don’t miss it! youtube.com/live/M8HJvzaUWwE…
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1. I’ve mentioned SQL as the “first” DSL for quite some time. It’s evident that a sub language aimed at data querying that is simple and easy to read his this mark. 2. Even more importantly, the market has spoken. SEQUEL was built to be “reachable” by more than old gray neck beards. And reach it has. A past colleague of mine once said “SQL isn’t rocket science.” And he was right. And easy to use declarative query language has cemented relational database access across the industry. When seasoned pro coders, fledgling beginner coders, business analysts, and even program managers can approach SQL and harvest value everybody wins. And a winning solution will continue being used. 3. We tried ORMs. And they are still somewhat popular. But people putting them back on the shelf when confronted with challenging situations. Performance issues. Impedance mismatches. ORMs are proving to NOT be the universal solution that SQL is. Yes, don’t let your users provide unsanitized inputs to your queries. Doh! I have spoken with industry veterans than when confronted with hard requirements often must shed every ounce of unneeded “help” possible and get their hands directly on the SQL. Sounds like SEQUEL may have hit its original objectives quite well.
Replying to @bushidocodes
The original SEQUEL paper from 1974 is mostly focused on the "console language" use case that Uncle Bob highlighted. Used in this way, SEQUEL enabled direct querying by business analysts that wouldn't know what Edgar Codd meant by "first-order predicate calculus" in his relational database papers. In fact, the language is called SEQUEL because the previous language SQUARE used terse math-like syntax, and this was considered too difficult for such non-technical business users. SEQUEL was made more verbose and English-like to be more approachable to non-technical business folks that might only run a few queries a year. Other tools designed with this target audience include COBOL, CODASYL data languages, and the RPG language. While the paper doesn’t mention embedding SQL explicitly, it does make a few implicit references that hint that this was perhaps under consideration as a future enhancement. First, the introduction opens as follows: As computer systems become more advanced, we see a gradual evolution from procedural to declarative problem specification. There are two major reasons for this evolution. First, a means must be found to lower software costs among professional programmers. The costs of program creation, maintenance, and modification have been rising very rapidly. The concepts of structured programming have been introduced in order to simplify programming and reduce the cost of software. Secondly, there is an increasing need to bring the non-professional user into effective communication with a formatted data base. Much of the success of the computer industry depends on developing a class of users other than trained computer specialists. The paper then goes on to focus on the second reason. However, the introduction begs the question: might SEQUEL also be somehow used to simplify programming and reduce the cost of software? Additionally, the paper calls SEQUEL a "sublanguage." Does a sublanguage imply a superlanguage? If so, that term might be 1970s for "embeddable DSL." Given the fact that relational databases were considered a next-gen CODASYL, and CODASYL was an evolution from the DATA DIVISION in a COBOL program, it seems very likely that embeddability in host languages was in the mind of IBM Researchers. Source: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/80029…
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Today ChatGPT tried to tell me my @tailwindcss class with “!” applied at the end (!important applied) was flat out wrong and to put it at the front. I found the page of ref docs to prove it wrong. (It can now read links) ChatGPT wouldn’t let up. I pasted the paragraph and code fragment. It still wouldn’t budge. Sometimes you simply have to veto what your AI overlords are telling you!
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Repeat 200 times and that will take me back to a particularly interesting task I once had.
23 Apr 2025
git commit -m "attempt to fix CI" ... git commit -m "attempt to fix CI" ... git commit -m "attempt to fix CI" ... git commit -m "attempt to fix CI" ... git commit -m "attempt to fix CI"
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You’d think a startup with literally billions in seed money could filter such words at the edge before sending them into the bowels of OpenAI.
Sam Altman admits that saying "Please" and "Thank You" to ChatGPT is wasting millions of dollars in computing power.
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I’ve always been a sucker for a movie that starts with a sense of “what are we doing here?” Then the main character draws a sword in a NY garage. Eyes pop out. I’m like “what the heck is going on??” Buckle up buttercup! It was like reading the first page of KILLING FLOOR by Lee Child. “I was arrested at Eno’s diner. I knew they were coming from me. So I slipped a $5 bill under the coffee cup to cover my tab.” WHO PAYS OFF THEIR BILL when a sheriff and deputy are coming at you with a shotgun?!? And how did you “know”?? Subverting expectations is killer in fiction. And if you know how to slide it into non-fiction as well, you’ll kick things up a notch for your reader.
Still one of the greatest opening scenes of all time. Highlander (1986)
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Greg L. Turnquist retweeted
With all this Java action, are you feeling left behind? Really love using the .NET platform to build awesome apps? Your time has come! 🔴 We are going LIVE at 12pm ET with @gregturn for another SELECT STAR. youtube.com/watch?v=FTKZAMws…
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Don't miss today's livestream where you'll learn how to make your .NET/C# apps sizzle on the database you just can't kill! youtube.com/watch?v=FTKZAMws…

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Something cool is brewing in @CockroachDB -land!
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Greg L. Turnquist retweeted
12 Apr 2025
It's pronounced JSON 🤓
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