DEV Community: Pavol Z. Kutaj

The Most Interesting (mostly) Tech Reads in February 2025

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 13:12:18 +0000

Don't Believe Him (by Ezra)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-trump-column-read.html Perception cannot become reality so easily. Can it?

Introducing self-describing JSONs

https://snowplow.io/blog/introducing-self-describing-jsons Learning about semi-structured data, this self-describing JSON approach rhymes with that.

49 Small Truths About Marriage All Couples Understand - Fatherly

https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/truths-about-marriage Everyone thinks of leaving. That's just part of staying.

Turso is rewriting SQLite in Rust with Glauber Costa, CEO at Turso (Changelog Interviews #626)

https://changelog.com/podcast/626 Listened to a great episode on SQLite itself on Corecursive Podcast in the past. Happy to see the challer on the block.

Beej's Guide to Network Programming

https://beej.us/guide/bgnet/html/split/what-is-a-socket.html#what-is-a-socket Socket Programming featured in David Beazley's famous live coding - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4 - so as I am new to network programming, I'm glad to have some intro here to better enjoy the talk, really (not doing any of that myself)

Trumpian policy as cultural policy - Marginal REVOLUTION

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/02/trumpian-policy-as-cultural-policy.html Another important take for me - on cultural change there already was one about "The vibes have changed" that came out before the election. This is an implementation of cultural change by "flooding the zone" by filling media with agenda, constant, without time taking for implementation. It's just an aggresive take on the existing discourse. Fascinating.

Fallthrough & Friends with Matthew Sanabria & Kris Brandow (Changelog & Friends #77)

https://changelog.com/friends/77 On documentation: what's often missing is I think my biggest gripe right now is just how few docs we have, how little documentation so many things have. But if there was a way… I think there was especially – what was it? There was one that was like the discover and learn steps. I am very frustrated often at libraries that I want to go in and understand, and there’s no “Oh, start looking here.” Or like “Here’s the basic architecture that you can then use to understand how this codebase is laid out, so you can go read the code and understand how we’ve implemented all of these things.” That documentation is almost always completely missing.

QuadrupleA/sqlite-page-explorer: Visual tool to explore SQLite databases page-by-page, the way they're stored on disk and the way SQLite sees them.

https://github.com/QuadrupleA/sqlite-page-explorer SQLite (and most databases) store data in disk-block-sized pages, usually 4KB, which helps make reads and writes as fast as possible.

Normally developers interact with databases on the "schema level" - tables, rows, and SQL. But taking a peek at the "page level" can give you some interesting insights:

Continuous reinvention: A brief history of block storage at AWS

https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2024/08/continuous-reinvention-a-brief-history-of-block-storage-at-aws.html

Marshmallow Test and Parenting - @desunit (Sergey Bogdanov)

https://desunit.com/blog/marshmallow-test-and-parenting/ Could be applied just as well to working environments.

Comments - Tech's Dumbest Mistake: Why Firing Programmers for AI Will Destroy Everything

https://defragzone.substack.com/p/techs-dumbest-mistake-why-firing/comments?utm_medium=web

Let Brandon Cook - Cal Newport

https://calnewport.com/let-brandon-cook/

Firing programmers for AI is a mistake

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43010814 Another long thread on HN about what AI is going to do to programmers. My thoughts are on Walter Benjamin§s essay on Art and Mechanical Reproduction.

Why Blog If Nobody Reads It?

https://andysblog.uk/why-blog-if-nobody-reads-it/

Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation (2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29083367 On Programmed Documentation - maybe Warp has Workflows that actually fits this.

What is the difference between len() and sys.getsizeof() methods in python? - Stack Overflow

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17574076/what-is-the-difference-between-len-and-sys-getsizeof-methods-in-python Finding a pleasure in reading great answers for programming 100% authored by people in Stack Overflow.

Filtered Decks - Anki Manual

https://docs.ankiweb.net/filtered-decks.html#:~:text=The%20easiest%20way%20to%20create,you%20click%20on%20a%20deck. Pre-warming my studies with memorization session.

htop Explained Visually

https://codeahoy.com/2017/01/20/hhtop-explained-visually/

PBS - JOHN GARDNER - EDUCATION AND EXCELLENCE

https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.html The things you learn in maturity aren't simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You leant not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent, but pays off on character.

You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you, they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.

Intro To 'comm' Command In Linux

https://blog.robertelder.org/intro-to-comm-command/ Venn Diagrams for Comm - as they are usually used for JOIN

Pravidla Magic: The Gathering ( ▷ Videonávod)

https://www.fyft.cz/mtg-clanky/magic-the-gathering-pravidla/ Learning MTG?

The Republican Party’s NPC Problem — and Ours

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lckYPwQj_NM&ab_channel=TheEzraKleinShow See https://stratechery.com/2022/the-current-thing/ for the analysis of the "current thing" meme.

Discovering discovery coding with Jimmy Miller (Changelog & Friends #80)

https://changelog.com/friends/80 Future of Code host on my favorite show. A must.

Future of AI: what happens after DeepSeek? (No One knows - but I have a guess) - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjtnA8sm9ZA

Achievement, here and there - by Benn Stancil

https://benn.substack.com/p/achievement-here-and-there?publication_id=23588&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=25tz5&utm_medium=email A variation of "The Current Thing" meme? Making pivoting the point, and the status of start-ups being greatly overestimated and being about marketing and attention grab then a more authentic value.

Discovering discovery coding with Jimmy Miller (Changelog & Friends #80)

https://changelog.com/friends/80

Vim After Bram: A Core Maintainer on How They’ve Kept It Going - The New Stack

https://thenewstack.io/vim-after-bram-a-core-maintainer-on-how-theyve-kept-it-going/ I am still on Vim. Tempted to go to Neo-Vim, but to not see outputs being worth it. at the moment. But it may be a question of time if I get to writing Python and Bash in much higher velocity in Vim.

Discovering discovery coding with Jimmy Miller (Changelog & Friends #80)

https://changelog.com/friends/80#transcript But I think the key to get into discovery coding is to be willing to not have a solution in mind. I do think that that is easier said than done. I think it’s very, very tempting anytime you’re approaching programming problems to come with solutions. And I don’t know, it sounds almost silly when I say it, but I’ve found that to be the number one thing that stops me from finding the good solutions, is that I already have a solution in mind, even if it’s just in the back of my head, and as I’m going and doing this, I will just automatically go towards that solution.

So step one, clear your mind, meditate… No solutions. Step two I really think is ask questions. Ask questions about the codebase, about the problem, about whatever it is that is this situation you’re in, and try to find the answers for those. And if the answers are frustrating to find, if it just takes too long to find them, build a tool that makes it really easy. And if you start there, the process of discovery coding will start becoming the easy default, because every time you want to have an answer, you already have tools available to you to help find that answer, and that ends up being like your inspiration for how to continue.

So the goal is to try to make it easy to discovery-code, because if it’s not, you’re never gonna do it. So you kind of have to do the hard work up front.

Jr Devs - I Can't Code Anymore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Se2zTlXDwY

Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ Attach to profit centers - where are those in the age of AI?

Europe faces its fate as an American colony - New Statesman

https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2025/02/jd-vance-munich-europe-russia-ukraine-trump Is what EU faces an attempt to turn it into US colony?

DOC • Beautiful, boring, and without soul

https://www.doc.cc/articles/beautiful-boring-and-without-soul

Discovering discovery coding with Jimmy Miller (Changelog & Friends #80)

https://changelog.com/friends/80 the key to get into discovery coding is to be willing to not have a solution in mind. I do think that that is easier said than done. I think it’s very, very tempting anytime you’re approaching programming problems to come with solutions. And I don’t know, it sounds almost silly when I say it, but I’ve found that to be the number one thing that stops me from finding the good solutions, is that I already have a solution in mind, even if it’s just in the back of my head, and as I’m going and doing this, I will just automatically go towards that solution.

So the goal is to try to make it easy to discovery-code, because if it’s not, you’re never gonna do it. So you kind of have to do the hard work up front.

The Digital Antiquarian

https://www.filfre.net/ Something that makes me highly nostalgic and that gives soul to the gaming as I remember it.

Programming with LLMs featuring David Crawshaw (Changelog Interviews #629)

https://changelog.com/podcast/629 A different take on AI assisted coding than one you have from Primagean, who is much more skeptical. This is more specific, building Go-specific tooling and being passionate about what LLMs can do for us. Also appreciating how code-completion is a completely different paradigm than a chat-bot for AI and how cool that is, pionereed by GitHub Copilot. I am not turning it back on, I don't depend on the amount of code I write for my paycheck so I rather write by myself, working through the problems alone. Or with occational oblique strategy. Still, it is fascinating what is happening, utterly mezmerizing to watch that.

New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code

https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-and-learning Clickbait and Moral Panic or it is really different? I am surely cautious. But the great plus is you CAN build things that until now needed code. If your focus is on craft - no. If your focus is on value - absolutely.

Change my mind (Changelog & Friends #81)

https://changelog.com/friends/81 Primagean is covering the same piece in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnpUK-f87zo&t=58s&ab_channel=ThePrimeTime.

GenAI hot takes and bad use cases (Practical AI #304)

https://changelog.com/practicalai/304 What's LLM are currently not good for: high throughput/low latency usecases, complete autonomy, high-stakes forecasting, not top languages (both of human and computer world), ... there is more and great!

The return of the modern data stack - by Benn Stancil

https://benn.substack.com/p/the-return-of-the-modern-data-stack?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=23588&post_id=157625068&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=25tz5&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email So much fun! Which, sure, this is how databases work now. About ten years ago, they got split in half, into a bucket of data on one side, and a compute engine that runs calculations on the other. So long as the buckets are formatted correctly, you can mix and match different buckets with different calculators.

But this SAP product, if it works the way I think it does, extends that idea in a couple of new ways. First, it suggests that applications, like CRMs and ERPs to CPQs and ATSs, could be one of the buckets that databases connect their calculators to. Rather than exporting data out of SAP—which is how people have done this for a while, and it clearly hasn’t gone well—SAP can simply reformat it. Then, people can bring their database—or, since it’s 2025, bring their aGeNtS—directly to the applications themselves.

The End of Programming as We Know It – O’Reilly

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/the-end-of-programming-as-we-know-it/ as read and commented on by primagean - (4) The End Of Programming As We Know It - YouTube and I currently agree that one should invest into not be made stupid and one should be defending ones skills - if you've already aqcuired them. Is it good for lifetime?

The Most Interesting (mostly) Tech Reads in January 2025

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 21:48:06 +0000

Databases in 2024: A Year in Review // Blog // Andy Pavlo - Carnegie Mellon University

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pavlo/blog/2025/01/2024-databases-retrospective.html Focus on Licence Changes. I've watched too. Great changelog interview with ELK Stack Author. Great post by Antirez about his return to Redis (https://antirez.com/news/144)

Ask HN: Programmers who don't use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42492508 Interesting debate on VIM vs IDE. I write Bash in Vim and Python in IDE (VSCode + iPython) and although enamoured by David Baeyzley's mastery, the IDE's just where I'm at with that particular language. To each his own, I think for this.

Programming as Theory Building (1985) [pdf]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42592543 Discussions of one of my favorite papers and favorite podcast episodes (Future of Code)

Bird (2024)

https://mubi.com/en/de/films/bird A movie I found when listening to Fountains DC's Bug song.

Null device - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_device Learning about black hole register and /dev/null in bash.

Say NO to Venn Diagrams When Explaining JOINs – Java, SQL and jOOQ.

https://blog.jooq.org/say-no-to-venn-diagrams-when-explaining-joins/ Return to this post as a refresher on SQL JOINs.

Hotel California - by Benn Stancil - benn.substack

https://benn.substack.com/p/hotel-california?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=23588&post_id=154556809&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=25tz5&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email On chaotic reality crashing into life filled with simulation.

Remembering Mike Maples, Sr.

https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/remembering-mike-maples-sr All along, Mike created a culture of respect, collaboration, and most of all “promise and deliver”. He instilled in everyone the most basic notion of saying what you’re going to do and doing that well.

Why Greenland Is Of Growing Strategic Significance

https://www.twz.com/news-features/why-greenland-is-of-growing-strategic-significance Reminds of a book with the title "The Revenge of Geography"

Jerry Seinfeld, Ichiro Suzuki and the Pursuit of Mastery

https://www.readtrung.com/p/jerry-seinfeld-ichiro-suzuki-and

AI’s Uneven Arrival – Stratechery by Ben Thompson

https://stratechery.com/2025/ais-uneven-arrival/ An eye-opener for o3. This is a surprising and important step-function increase in AI capabilities, showing novel task adaptation ability never seen before in the GPT-family models. For context, ARC-AGI-1 took 4 years to go from 0% with GPT-3 in 2020 to 5% in 2024 with GPT-4o. All intuition about AI capabilities will need to get updated for o3, which performs at 75% for ths test.

The Origins of Wokeness

https://paulgraham.com/woke.html We should have a conscious bias against defining new forms of heresy. Whenever anyone tries to ban saying something that we'd previously been able to say, our initial assumption should be that they're wrong. Only our initial assumption of course. If they can prove we should stop saying it, then we should. But the burden of proof is on them. In liberal democracies, people trying to prevent something from being said will usually claim they're not merely engaging in censorship, but trying to prevent some form of "harm". And maybe they're right. But once again, the burden of proof is on them. It's not enough to claim harm; they have to prove it.

Heroku and the Twelve-Factor App with Vish Abrams - Software Engineering Daily

https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2025/01/14/heroku-and-the-twelve-factor-app-with-vish-abrams/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=heroku-and-the-twelve-factor-app-with-vish-abrams the manifesto is getting a rewrite, driven by Heroku but being worked on collectivelly as an open-source project, great chat on current state of Heroku as well.

Principles - Nabeel S. Qureshi

https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/principles?publication_id=107423&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=3o9&utm_medium=email “Aim for Chartres” (Christopher Alexander) — when doing something, aim to be the best there ever was at it. This compensates for your natural bias, which is to do something mediocre. You have to really aim to be as good as the greats.

Show HN: GUI for editing Mermaid class diagrams

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42738656 I am using Mermaid on my client meetings multiple times a week. It's just amazing.

The quiet rebellion of a little life

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42769751 Near as I can tell there is a not-insignificant part of the American psychological context that amounts to a threat of utter destitution should you not choose to keep slaving away. By Krom, America needs homeless people to show you just how far you can fall unless you keep serving the man.

AI Slop, Suspicion, and Writing Back

https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2025/01/25/AI-Slop-Suspicion-and-Writing-Back/ I do AI slop as well and I own it on my blog.

From open source to acquired with Ashley Jeffs (Changelog Interviews #625)

https://changelog.com/podcast/625 On Benthos Stream Processing, from OS to being bought by Red Panda. Very funny at times, the humor there seemed like instilled in Benthos itself.

Jinja (template engine) - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinja_(template_engine) Using Jinja for a simpler task as it was a first thing that occured to me. I should have just used a built-in Template module though. I did not need any programming logic in the template just a simple placeholders.

Good Lord - by Benn Stancil - benn.substack

https://benn.substack.com/p/good-lord Such a brave critique of the politics of current Silicon Valley and catching its own hypocricies. Amazing and inspiring.

Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42877709 Vatican's take on AI and many respectful voices on Hacker News. I can still get surprised!

How to combine rg with less in terminal

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 07:58:18 +0000

USECASE

The aim of this page 📝 is to explain how to paginate the results of ripgrep (rg) using less. This is especially useful for querying my knowledge base, which is a simple file tree full of markdown files, edited in Visual Studio Code.

less is a powerful terminal pager program used to view the contents of a file one screen at a time. It allows backward and forward navigation through the file, and it is more feature-rich than other pagers like more. With less, you can search within the file, navigate by lines or pages, and even view files with color formatting.

Ripgrep (rg) is a powerful tool for searching within files.
To handle large search results, pipe the output to a pager like less.
The -R flag is crucial for displaying colors correctly in less.
Using ripgrep with the --pretty flag and less provides a great combination.

rg --pretty '<search_term>' | less -R

Benefits of this approach:
- Scroll up/down through results: Navigate large outputs easily.
- Search within results: Press / in less to search (like vim)
- Preserved colors and formatting: Keep syntax highlighting.
- Line numbers and file names remain visible.
- Easy exit: Press q to quit less.
- Hyperlinks + preview: with Warp, I'll get the contents of the linked file OOTB

How to Use Delta Pager without Headings

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:56:03 +0000

The aim of this page📝 is to explain how to configure Delta to omit hunk headers in git diff outputs, resulting in cleaner and more readable diffs. I have looked for it for quite some time — the feature is called Hunk Header. I have a data file of 80MB (Consul KV Dump with each KV per line) and need to compare past VS current (HEAD) version.
• Delta is a syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, and grep outputs.
• By default, git diff includes hunk headers, which can clutter the output.
• To remove these headers, configure Delta’s hunk-header-style to omit.
• This setting is specified in the Git configuration file.
• The configuration line to add is:

[delta]
    hunk-header-style = omit

• This configuration instructs Delta to omit the hunk header section from the output.
• After updating the configuration, run git diff as usual:

git diff -U0 <commit_hash> HEAD --color | delta

• The -U0 option ensures only the modified lines are shown.
• The --color option enables syntax highlighting.
• The | delta pipes the output through Delta for enhanced formatting.
• This setup results in a cleaner diff display, focusing solely on the changes without additional semantic headers.

LINKS

https://github.com/dandavison/delta/issues/364
https://github.com/dandavison/delta
https://dandavison.github.io/delta/full—help-output.html

Explaining self-join in SQL

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 11:33:07 +0000

The aim of this page📝 is to explain self-joins in SQL and how they can be used effectively.

Definition: A self-join is a regular join but the table is joined with itself.
Purpose: It is used to compare rows within the same table or to create a hierarchical structure.
Example Table: A healthcare_providers table with columns name, id, and supervisor_id.
Basic SQL Query:

  SELECT * 
  FROM healthcare_providers;

Data Representation: Example data:

  ┏━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
  ┃ name    ┃ id ┃ supervisor_id ┃
  ┡━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
  │ Alice   │  2 │          1    │
  │ Bob     │  3 │          1    │
  │ Carol   │  4 │          5    │
  │ David   │  5 │          NULL │
  │ Eve     │  1 │          5    │
  └─────────┴────┴───────────────┘

Self-Join Query:

  SELECT 
      e.name AS employee,
      s.name AS reports_to
  FROM healthcare_providers e
  LEFT JOIN healthcare_providers s ON e.supervisor_id = s.id
  ORDER BY s.name NULLS LAST;

Explanation:
- Aliases: e represents employees, s represents supervisors.
- LEFT JOIN: Ensures all employees are listed, even if they don't have supervisors.
- ON Clause: Links supervisor_id from e to id in s.
- SELECT Clause: Retrieves employee names and their respective supervisor names.
- ORDER BY: Sorts the result by supervisor names, keeping null values at the end.
Result:

  | employee | reports_to |
  |----------|------------|
  | Alice    | Eve        |
  | Bob      | Eve        |
  | Carol    | David      |
  | Eve      | David      |
  | David    | NULL       |

How to Copy/Duplicate a File Duplicate in Vim (netrw+vinegar)

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 14:59:56 +0000

USECASE

The aim of this page 📝 is to explain how to duplicate a file in Vim using the netrw file explorer with the vim-vinegar plugin.
Spent way too much time, given that R is shorthand for renaming the file.

Use vim-vinegar to enhance netrw usability.
Press - to open netrw.
Mark the file with mf.
Copy the file with mc.
Input the new file name and press Enter.

Explaining DELETE vs DROP vs TRUNCATE in SQL

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 08:10:58 +0000

The aim of this page📝 is to explain a difference between three similar clauses in SQL: DELETE FROM vs TRUNCATE TABLE vs DROP TABLE. A simple one, but essential.

DELETE FROM

You should be able to undo this
Deletes one row at a time
Logs each row in the transaction log
LSN (log sequence number) is kept, too
Supports WHERE clause for selective row deletion

DELETE FROM <table>
DELETE FROM books -- all has been dropped
DELETE FROM books WHERE author = 'Smith' -- only Smith's books deleted

TRUNCATE TABLE

faster
deletes all records in a table by deallocating the data pages used by the table

TRUNCATE TABLE 'foo.bar'

DROP TABLE

Removes the entire table structure and all data
Cannot be rolled back (most DBMS)
Removes table definition from database schema
Frees all space associated with the table

DROP TABLE tablename;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS tablename;

LINKS

https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1080/deleting-data-in-sql-server-with-truncate-vs-delete-commands/

Explaining Relation and Data Independence in SQL

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 17:44:02 +0000

USECASE

The aim of this page📝 is to explain data independence in relational and navigational database models, with a focus on Edgar F. Codd's definition of a relation, as I am not entirely by the following

The term "relational database" refers to the fact that the tables within it "relate" to one another—they contain common identifiers that allow information from multiple tables to be combined easily.

https://mode.com/sql-tutorial/sql-joins
Data Independence: Refers to the separation of the schema of a database and the application that uses the data.
Relational Model: Provides data independence, making it flexible and easier to maintain.
Physical Data Independence: Changes in physical storage do not affect logical schema.
Logical Data Independence: Changes to the logical schema do not impact how data is accessed by applications.
Navigational Model predating relational model: Lacks data independence.
Tight Coupling: In navigational databases, data and application logic are tightly coupled.
Impact of Changes: Changes to the database structure in a navigational model require updates to the application code.
Flexibility: Relational databases allow easier updates without disrupting applications.
Database Maintenance: Easier in relational databases due to the independence of data and schema.
Key Differences: Understanding the main differences between relational and navigational models helps in choosing the right database for specific needs.

Definition of a Relation

Edgar F. Codd's Definition: In his seminal 1970 paper, "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks," Codd introduced the concept of a relation. He defined a relation as a set of tuples, where each tuple is a sequence of attribute values. A relation is essentially a table with rows and columns, where:
- Rows (Tuples): Represent individual records.
- Columns (Attributes): Represent properties of the records.
Mathematical Foundation: Codd's relational model is grounded in mathematical principles of set theory and predicate logic. A relation is defined as a subset of the Cartesian product of a list of domains. Each domain represents a possible set of values for an attribute.
Schema and Instance:
- Schema: Defines the structure of a relation, including the attribute names and their domains.
- Instance: Represents the actual data stored in the relation at a specific point in time.
Relation Example:

  Customers
  +------------+-------------+
  | CustomerID | Name        |
  +------------+-------------+
  | 1          | Alice       |
  | 2          | Bob         |
  +------------+-------------+

  Orders
  +---------+------------+----------+
  | OrderID | CustomerID | Amount   |
  +---------+------------+----------+
  | 101     | 1          | $150     |
  | 102     | 2          | $200     |
  +---------+------------+----------+

Foreign Key Relationships: In the relational model, tables are related to each other through common attributes (keys). For example, the CustomerID in the Orders table is a foreign key that relates each order to a specific customer in the Customers table. This allows for structured and flexible data management.

Explaining (the need for) SQL's Common Table Expressions (CTE)

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 12:29:13 +0000

usecase

The concern is documenting the use of COMMON TABLE EXPRESSIONS as used repeatedly in Redash when creating monitoring queries / reports. Also, I ran into the order of SQL operations learning that you cannot filter a derived column in the same statement where it is defined.

1. what is CTE

A CTE (Common Table Expression) is TEMPORARY RESULT SET
You can reference within another SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement
i.e. you can build it and use in later query
used in more complex queries
they are EXPRESSIONS, i.e. they always return a value

2. syntax

3. benefits

easy to learn
code readibility
named query gives you info about query results
readable SQL is a big help to others and to you after 2 months
modularity
copy-pastable, re-usable
CTEs can be pasted together
better matches how you think about data analysis
Common Table Expressions (CTE) are often used to reduce the complexity of SQL queries.
Sometimes, CTEs are not just a refactoring technique; they are necessary if you want to filter on a derived column.

Sometimes, CTE is a necessity - not just a refactoring technique

See: https://mode.com/sql-tutorial/sql-case
The following breaks

select player_name,
       year,
       case when year ='SR' then 'yes'
       else null
       end as "is_a_senior"
from benn.college_football_players
where is_a_senior = "yes"

That returnes an error column "is_a_senior" does not exist occurs when referencing a derived column in the WHERE clause.
It is because the order of SQL query processing:
1. FROM
2. WHERE
3. GROUP BY
4. HAVING
5. SELECT
6. ORDER BY
7. LIMIT/OFFSET
The WHERE clause is evaluated before the SELECT clause, causing the derived column alias (is_a_senior) to be unavailable in the WHERE clause.
The simple solution using Common Table Expressions (CTE) (there may be others) is as follows:

WITH player_data AS (
    SELECT player_name,
           year,
           CASE WHEN year = 'SR' THEN 'yes'
                ELSE null
           END AS is_a_senior
    FROM benn.college_football_players
)
SELECT player_name,
       year,
       is_a_senior
FROM player_data
WHERE is_a_senior = 'yes';

4. sources

https://mode.com/sql-tutorial/sql-case

How to Build Personal Curicullum Locally in Python

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 22:07:00 +0000

USECASE

The aim of this page 📝 is to explain how to learn SQL with Mode's tutorial using Kevin Li's approach with an exciting HN discussion I embarked on my journey to learn SQL using Mode's tutorial and discovered an effective learning strategy from Kevin Li. His approach emphasizes three key points:

Quickly identify foundational knowledge.

Build a personal curriculum to become an expert and avoid the trap of the expert beginner.

Sprint hard for the first 15-20 hours to impress initial memory, then decelerate to a more regular pace.

To build my personal SQL curriculum, I'm using Mode's SQL Tutorial.
I've added an ID (MST) to track my progress, and I quickly create files with numbers and titles of lessons using web scraping with Beautiful Soup. This method allows me to organize my learning material efficiently and monitor my progress easily.

Python Code with Explainer

Initial Setup and HTML Parsing:
We start by importing necessary libraries and fetching the HTML content from Mode's SQL tutorial page.

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

url = "https://mode.com/sql-tutorial"

response = requests.get(url)
soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')

Extracting Titles:
Next, we find all <h4> elements which contain the lesson titles.

titles = [title.get_text() for title in soup.find_all('h4')]

Creating Files with Formatted Titles:
Finally, we create files for each title, formatted with leading zeros and appropriate naming conventions.

for i, title in enumerate(titles):
    file_name = title.strip().replace(' ', '-').replace('/', '_') + '.md'  # Replace spaces with hyphens and add .md extension
    file_name = f"{i:02d}-{file_name}"  # Prepend index with leading zeros (2 digits)
    open(file_name, 'a').close()  # Open file in append mode to create or update access timestamp

This code ensures that:

HTML content is fetched and parsed.
Titles of the lessons are extracted.
Files are created with formatted titles and indices.

Using this script, I quickly generate organized files in my file system and add content as I progress through the curriculum. This method aligns with Kevin Li's strategy, helping me track my progress and stay motivated in my learning journey.

LINKS

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909827
https://mode.com/sql-tutorial

Explaining Null Device or Black Hole Register in Vim

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 09:08:40 +0000

The aim of this page📝 is to explain the concept of registers in Vim, particularly the black hole register, and its comparison to /dev/null in Bash. I am solving an incident where our design has something similar in event streaming context — we have a stream that works like a null device and we write data there in when it has to be written but it is just to discard it. In general, this is known as null device

Vim has a special register called the black hole register.
The black hole register discards data without storing it.
Use _ (underscore) to specify the black hole register.
Example commands: "_d (delete without storing), "_x (delete character) or "_C" to change the whole line without yanking its contents to a register
This concept is similar to redirecting to /dev/null in Bash.
/dev/null discards data without saving it.

Example in Bash:

echo "This won't be seen" > /dev/null

Example in Vim:

"_d
"_x
"_C

Explaining Transaction Count as Important Constraint for adding additional AWS Kinesis Consumers

Pavol Z. Kutaj — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 13:34:27 +0000

USECASE

The aim of this page📝 is to explain the significance of monitoring CloudWatch metrics for Kinesis streams, particularly focusing on GetRecords.Records and SampleCount.
Previously, I was only monitoring the volume limits. However, transaction count limits can also become important when adding additional consumers to the stream. After adding a new consumer, I started noticing latencies and a spike in the ReadProvisionedThroughputExceeded metric.

GetRecords.Records metric counts the number of records retrieved from a shard in a specified time period.
SampleCount for GetRecords.Records indicates the number of GetRecords operations (transactions) performed.
Monitoring SampleCount helps in tracking the frequency of read transactions.
Kinesis stream limits each shard to five read transactions per second.
Using SampleCount ensures staying within the transaction quota.
Adding a new consumer increases read transactions, making SampleCount monitoring crucial.
Monitoring GetRecords.Bytes gives insight into the volume of data read.
Balancing GetRecords.Records, GetRecords.Bytes, and SampleCount provides a comprehensive view of stream usage.
Exceeding transaction limits can lead to throttling or performance issues.
Regular monitoring helps optimize stream performance and prevent issues.

DEV Community: Pavol Z. Kutaj

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yq

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USECASE

LINKS

How to Use Delta Pager without Headings

LINKS

Explaining self-join in SQL

How to Copy/Duplicate a File Duplicate in Vim (netrw+vinegar)

USECASE

LINKS

Explaining DELETE vs DROP vs TRUNCATE in SQL

DELETE FROM

TRUNCATE TABLE

DROP TABLE