Re:They don't even know the fundamentals
by dspillett on Monday November 01, 2021 @08:44AM
(#29066007)
> The author says, "I wouldn’t be able to explain from the top of my head what the ACID term means".
> I think there is a big difference between not knowing something off the top of your head and being completely unaware of it.
The next level is being aware that the “I” doesn't quite apply in most databases with their default transaction settings, true isolation/serialisability being sacrificed for performance, though the distinction rarely matters is can be significant.
> You don't necessarily have to understand how a B-tree works for an index to be effective.
How a b-tree operates can be safely kept as a black-box thing, the important level of detail that many miss in my experience is how compound indexes can (and more importantly, can't) be used. Others include that in most databases defining a foreign key relationship does not create a supporting index by default, and that careless use of functions in joining & filtering clauses often blocks index use. If you have a DB specialist on the team there is probably no need for other devs to be intimately aware of even these details, but they should at least be aware enough of their existence than they know to ask the local expert (or look things up elsewhere) to check their working when the issues might affect what they are working on.
As a bit of a local DB specialist who has met some bad ones, I should point out that it is important that we, and other local “exports”, be approachable so the other devs feel they can run things by us for verification/improvement.
The next level is being aware that the “I” doesn't quite apply in most databases with their default transaction settings, true isolation/serialisability being sacrificed for performance, though the distinction rarely matters is can be significant.
> You don't necessarily have to understand how a B-tree works for an index to be effective.
How a b-tree operates can be safely kept as a black-box thing, the important level of detail that many miss in my experience is how compound indexes can (and more importantly, can't) be used. Others include that in most databases defining a foreign key relationship does not create a supporting index by default, and that careless use of functions in joining & filtering clauses often blocks index use. If you have a DB specialist on the team there is probably no need for other devs to be intimately aware of even these details, but they should at least be aware enough of their existence than they know to ask the local expert (or look things up elsewhere) to check their working when the issues might affect what they are working on.
As a bit of a local DB specialist who has met some bad ones, I should point out that it is important that we, and other local “exports”, be approachable so the other devs feel they can run things by us for verification/improvement.