With the Rise of AI Chat, Are Experts Still Needed? (DBW 2023-02-18)

Database Weekly for February 18, 2023 Problems displaying this newsletter? [View online](. [Database Weekly]( The Complete Weekly Roundup of SQL Server News by SQLServerCentral.com Hand-picked content to sharpen your professional edge Editorial  With the Rise of AI Chat, are Experts Still Needed? As I was looking at the feed of technology stories this week, two things jumped out at me. First, Valentine's day happened to fall on the monthly release day for Microsoft updates and feature previews. If you work with Azure services, specifically in the data platform space, there are a [lot of update announcements]( to work through from this past week. Second, the constant feed of news about AI-driven chat platforms isn't going to abate any time soon. Just over a week ago Microsoft announced the release of the new Bing with OpenAI technology in limited preview. Within 24 hours, Google announced their entry into the AI chat space with the Bard chatbot. Unfortunately for Google, Bard's announcement started with a [factual error]( and the internet couldn't handle it. While the technology is fascinating and the signup numbers outpace nearly all previous "unicorn" projects, I have a confession to make. I didn't try to use ChatGPT until earlier this week. There are a few reasons why I waited so long, not the least of which was simply having the time to learn where to start. But if I'm being honest, it felt like a gimmick ready to waste more of my precious time. Within days of the public preview, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn were (and still are) overrun by "10 Best Prompts for ChatGPT" threads and videos. I just didn't have the need or time to risk being sucked into a vortex. As a database developer I could appreciate the samples of code writing and query generation. With the correct prompts it was fun to see ChatGPT provide digestible answers to technical design challenges. But in the end, it felt like everything I saw was another example of someone spending time trying to get ChatGPT to provide the answers that they could have coded in less time. However, something finally pushed me over the edge on Monday. My New Research Assistant I was doing research for some blog posts about PostgreSQL patches and upcoming features. There is an endless stream of information for each topic that delves into the history, highlights, bugs, requests for improvement, and more. The PostgreSQL documentation alone is dense and time consuming to get through. I realized that ChatGPT might be able to help me summarize some of the questions I had. I wanted to direct the service to a set of publicly available email threads and have it summarize the conversation. Unfortunately, that's not possible, yet. Next, I tried to copy portions of the back and forth into ChatCPT but my text selection was always too long (with no feedback on what the maximum length was). Finally, I realized I had to take a different approach. As I re-read the email thread conversation, I used ChatGPT to explain concepts that weren't clear to me. While I could have done the same in Google or another search engine, this did end up being a more natural experience. "What is the difference between X and Y?" "Is Y better in situations where Z happens?" The answers helped me understand the concepts at the level I needed without clicking through multiple web pages or Stack Overflow threads. Finally, I had found a use for ChatGPT - and I probably should have tried this sooner. Your Skills and Knowledge Are Still Valuable While I came away with a sense intrigue, I also came away with a stronger sense of how essential it is to retain and encourage professionals that care about their craft. For the time-being, at least, our skills and knowledge are more valuable than ever... with or without ChatGPT. Yes, ChatGPT might have the ability to quickly suggest the right SQL JOIN or which WINDOW function will produce the results you are expecting. But ChatGPT will never know your specific, private business data (and if it does, we have other problems to worry about). You know your problem domain best. You know the distribution of your data best. You understand the nuances of how your data model works and the access patterns throughout each day, week, and season. ChatGPT and all the AI assistant bots coming down the pike are just additional tools at your disposal. Every day we have a growing stream of new information coming at us and having a tool available that can quickly summarize and correlate that information will be particularly helpful. Use these new tools wisely, not blindly. What About You? Have you found a particular use case for tools like AI chat that's benefited your day-to-day job responsibilities? How have tools like these helped you solve database or analysis problems? Ryan Booz [Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums](  The Weekly News All the headlines and interesting SQL Server information that we've collected over the past week, and sometimes even a few repeats if we think they fit. Vendors/3rd Party Products [The business value of frequent deployments]( The multi-million-dollar question for you and your business is... what is the real business value of frequent deployments? Part one of three in this series on the value of database DevOps. [Recording What’s Changed when Running Oracle Migrations with Flyway](  [Firebase and Supabase: Key differences you need to know]( The tools classified as “Realtime Backend / API“, or tools that can rapidly process an API call and in this case, store data, include Firebase and Supabase. Firebase is a NoSQL database, while Supabase is a relational database. The Firestore database, which lets you store “documents,” is the core of Firebase. These are collections of key-value pairs where different sub-value documents may be present. [Using TOP clause in a SELECT statement]( This article will cover using the TOP clause in a SELECT statement and how it can be used to return a partial set of records. AI/Machine Learning/Cognitive Services [Azure Machine Learning Introduction: Part 1 Overview and prep work]( From Simple Talk The five-part series is designed to jump-start any IT professional’s journey in the fascinating world of Data Science with Azure Machine Learning (Azure ML). Readers don’t need prior knowledge... [Curious about ChatGPT: Exploring the origins of generative AI and natural language processing]( From AllAnalytics How did we get to a place where a conversational chatbot can quickly create a personalized letter? Join us as we explore some of the key innovations over the... Administration of SQL Server [Patch your SQL Server instance today]( From SQLServerCentral Blogs On 14 February 2023, Microsoft released updates for all supported versions of SQL Server in the form of a General Distribution Release (GDR). A GDR is an out-of-band update... The... [Overlooked Reason SQL Server Ignores Your Filtered Indexes]( From MSSQL Tips In this article, we look at using SQL Server filtered indexes to improve performance, why SQL Server will sometimes ignore these indexes, and what you can do to ensure... [10 Free SQL Server Resources We Love]( From StraightPath Solutions SQL Blog Featured image photo by Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash Everybody loves freebies, and the SQL Server community is full of them. Free scripts, stored procedures, blog posts, books, and... [SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries for February 2023]( From Glenn Berry Introduction These are my SQL Server Diagnostic In... Azure CosmosDB [Public preview: Major version upgrade in Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server]( From Azure Updates Eliminate the need to set up new servers and complete manual upgrades with in-place major version upgrade for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server. Azure SQL [Automatic compute scaling with serverless for Hyperscale in Azure SQL Database]( From Azure SQL Optimizing resource allocation to achieve performance goals while controlling costs can be a challenging balance to strike especially for database workloads with complex usage patterns. Azure SQL Database serverless... Big Data [Databricks vs. AWS Redshift: Data Platform Comparison]( From Past News - RSS Feeds The quantity of structured and unstructured data that enterprises must deal with today is such that most require the best in databases and data warehouses. A large data warehouse... Career, Employment, and Certifications [T-SQL Tuesday 159 – Azure Synapse Link and certifications]( From Kevin Chant Reading Time: 2 minutes For this months T-SQL Tuesday contribution I want to cover Azure Synapse Link and certifications. In addition, this post contains plenty of links. Community... [Who’s Hiring in the Microsoft Data Platform Community? February 2023 Edition]( From Brent Ozar Unlimited It’s Valentine’s day – let’s do some matchmaking! Is your company hiring for a database position as of February 2023? Do you wanna work with the kinds of people... Community Interests [T-SQL Tuesday #159 – Optimizing for the Year]( From Callihan Data The T-SQL Tuesday #159 invitation comes from Deepthi Goguri who has not one, but two invitation topics. First, what is a favorite SQL Server 2022 or Azure feature? Second,... Conferences, Classes, Events, and Webinars [Join us in our castle at SQL Bits, March 15-18]( SQL Bits is coming to Wales, home of dragons and D&D, and we’re happy announce we’re supporting them as platinum sponsors again this year. Meet us at our Red Keep and catch sessions by noble Fighter Grant Fritchey, Sorcerer Steve Jones, and more beloved Redgate Paladins and Druids. For a magical 10% discount on your ticket, use 10REDGATE from our spell book. Register now using 10REDGATE. Data Mining / Data Analysis [build a story, not a dashboard]( From Storytelling with Data I had an impromptu consulting session yesterday with a friend who was looking for guidance on how to visualize data for an important new initiative he is spearheading at... Data Science [Visualizing Moving Averages in R with healthyR.ts]( From Curated SQL Steven Sanderson shows off a useful R library: Are you interested in visualizing time series data in a clear and concise way? The R package {healthyR.ts} provides…Continue readingVisualizing Moving Averages in... [Estimating Quantiles in Python]( From Curated SQL Christian Lorentzen digs into quantile calculation: Applied statistics is dominated by the ubiquitous mean. For a change, this post is dedicated to quantiles. I will give my…Continue readingEstimating Quantiles in Python [Out of Your SSMS World, Jupyter Notebooks in Azure Data Studio – Louisville Data Technology Group, Feb 2023]( From Data on Wheels (Steve Hughes) It was a lot of fun to speak at the Louisville Data Technology Group in February. Sheila and I presented on Jupyter notebooks in Azure Data Studio. The session... DevOps and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) [How to Improve the Quality of Database Releases using Clones]( From Product learning – Redgate Software This article explains how we can use the ephemeral, containerized databases delivered by Redgate Clone to increase database code quality and therefore the stability, reliability, and performance of the... Microsoft News [Microsoft to Reportedly Announce ChatGPT-Like Tools for Office Apps in March]( From Petri IT Knowledgebase Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI may soon acc... Performance Tuning SQL Server [Index Tuning Essentials: How Indexes Make SQL Server Joins Faster]( From Erik Darling Data +OK [Performance Problems and Solutions when using User Defined Functions in SQL Server]( From MSSQL Tips Learn how to troubleshoot SQL Server User-Defined Function performance issues using actual execution plans, estimated execution plans, and live query statistics and why it makes a difference. [Query Tuning Essentials: How Key Lookups Can Hurt SQL Server Query Performance]( From Erik Darling Data +OK PowerPivot/PowerQuery/PowerBI [How to create a Sankey Chart in Power BI Desktop]( From MSSQL Tips Learn how to build and format a Sankey Chart using Power BI along with step-by-step instructions. [Scheduling a Power BI Premium Backup]( From Curated SQL Gilbert Quevauvilliers has us synchronize our watches: In this blog post I am going to detail how to create a schedule, test and confirm that…Continue readingScheduling a Power BI... [Understanding blank row and limited relationships]( From Sqlbi DAX creates a blank row to guarantee that results are accurate even if a regular relationship is invalid. The blank row is not created for limited relationships. This article... [Dynamic What-Ifs in Power BI]( From Curated SQL Chris Webb breaks the limits: My recent post on passing any value to a Power BI dynamic M parameter from a report generated quite a lot of…Continue readingDynamic What-Ifs in Power... [Organizing Power BI Workspaces]( From Curated SQL Reza Rad brings order to things: The question I often get in my Power BI architecture consulting sessions is; “How should we organize our workspaces?…Continue readingOrganizing Power BI Workspaces [Dynamic What-If With User-Entered Data In Power BI]( From Chris Webb's BI Blog Create a what-if parameter in Power BI based on end user inputted values Product Reviews and Articles [Book Review: SQL Server 2022 Query Performance Tuning]( A popular performance tuning book gets updated for SQL Server 2022, how does it fare? Python [Creating Animated Line Plots with Python]( From MSSQL Tips Python has the ability to create many different types of charts and graphs and in this article, we look at how to create animated line plots with Python. Security News and Issues [Why SecDataOps Is the Future of Your Security Program]( From Dark Reading: Dark Reading News Analysis The goal: Ensure that data is always finely curated and accessible, and that security decisions get made with high-fidelity data. [Reddit Hack Shows Limits of MFA, Strengths of Security Training]( From Dark Reading: Dark Reading News Analysis A tailored spear-phishing attack successfully conv... [Integreon Launches Cyber Incident Response Offering with Development of AI-Based Review and Integration of RadarFirst]( From Dark Reading: Dark Reading News Analysis  [MagicWeb Mystery Highlights Nobelium Attacker's Sophistication]( From Dark Reading: Dark Reading News Analysis The authentication bypass used by the Nobelium gro... T-SQL and Query Languages [The Power of Date Truncation]( From Curated SQL Magda Bronowska rounds to the nearest minute: From MS Learn: DATETRUNC() function returns an input date truncated to a specified datepart. On the surface the…Continue readingThe Power of Date... [The Benefit of IS DISTINCT FROM]( From Curated SQL Rob Farley enjoys the syntax: This month, Deepthi Goguri (@dbanuggets) asks us about our favourite new feature in SQL Server 2022 or Azure. And while there are always…Continue readingThe Benefit of IS... [OPENROWSET, Dynamic SQL & Error Handling]( From Deb the DBA Now that we understand a little more how dynamic SQL works, let’s see how it helped me solve the problem. What is OPENROWSET? OPENROWSET is a functionality that allows... Tech News [The ChatGPT-fueled battle for search is bigger than Microsoft or Google]( From Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories It’s a good time to be a search startup. When I spoke to Richard Socher, the CEO of You.com, last week he was buzzing: “Man, what an exciting day—looks... [Microsoft (Sort of) Officially Sanctions Running Windows 11 on Apple's M1/M2 Macs]( From Tom's Hardware US Microsoft has published an official support page offering guidance for running Windows 11 on Macs with Apple's M1 and M2 processors. [Microsoft Stabs a Stake Through Internet Explorer's Heart on Valentine's Day]( From Tom's Hardware US Microsoft has been trying to kill Internet Explore... [Bing's AI-Powered Chatbot Sounds Like It Needs Human-Powered Therapy]( From Tom's Hardware US We've been exploring the ChatGPT-powered Bing 'Sydney' and have had some interesting conversations. [Uber Ditches On-Prem and Hooks Future to GCP and Oracle Cloud]( From IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools Here we reveal key lessons data center operators can glean from Uber's recent migration announcement. We also share a repatriation case study along with strategic considerations for either data... [ChromeOS Will Soon Allow You to Change Keyboard Shortcuts]( From Tom's Hardware US A beta build of ChromeOS 111 shows what the keyboard shortcuts app will look like. [World's Smallest 3D Printer is 41mm Tall, Outputs Detailed Models]( From Tom's Hardware US This SLA printer is no taller than a matchstick, b... Tools for Dev (SSMS, ADS, VS, etc.) [Recently released: Updates to DacFx and Microsoft.Build.Sql]( From Azure SQL Database development with SQL projects is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux through Visual Studio, VS Code, and Azure Data Studio. SQL projects are a .NET-based project type for...  [RSS Feed]( This email has been sent to {EMAIL}. To be removed from this list, please click [here](. If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the webmaster@sqlservercentral.com. This newsletter was sent to you because you signed up at SQLServerCentral.com. Note: This is not the SQLServerCentral.com daily newsletter list, and unsubscribing to this newsletter will not stop you receiving the SQL Server Central daily newsletters. If you want to be removed from that list, you can follow the instructions on the daily newsletter. ©2019 Redgate Software Ltd, Newnham House, Cambridge Business Park, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, United Kingdom. All rights reserved. webmaster@sqlservercentral.com  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -