Is It OK to Show My Database Schema to ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot?

I’m answering two questions from Brent Ozar’s list of user questions open for answers.

Q: What’s your opinion of entering confidential info in chat gpt? Will we see AI therapist chat bots?

Q: In terms of security, is it OK to expose your database to tools like GitHub Copilot in Azure Data Studio? Someone will know that your email address column is not encrypted or a stored procedure is not parsing its input parameters when dynamic T-SQL is built.

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Career Navigation in the Time of Tech Layoffs

Reorganizations and layoffs are now commonplace in the tech industry: a daily occurrence. It’s increasingly necessary for tech workers mentally prepare for potential job loss and uncertainties that arise. It’s a common antipattern to believe that it’s “too late” to prepare for a layoff or unexpected reorganization if a layoff has already occurred in your organization.

It’s never too late, and it’s always the right time these days to start mentally preparing yourself for change– because there’s reliably another change around the corner.

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Use ChatGPT to See Multiple Perspectives: An Example With ORMs and Database Code

There’s a lot of hype, concern, and fear regarding generative AI lately. Tools like ChatGPT are so good at generating groups of words that it feels like magic– however, generative AI doesn’t have the ability to understand or verify the language it generates. For example, it’s been used to write news stories for CNET – but sometimes included facts that are just plain wrong.

One positive use case of a generative AI tool like ChatGPT is to ask it to make a case for different perspectives than your own, and use this as a starting point to broaden your understanding – with the knowledge that we need to verify everything ChatGPT tells us. As an example, let’s chat to ChatGPT about Object Relational Mapping tools (ORMs).

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New Tricks I Learned from the Azure Data Studio Code Editor Tutorial

Today I walked through the Use Azure Data Studio to connect and query Azure SQL database Quickstart. This Quickstart is solid and is great for someone new to Azure Data Studio.

At the end of the Quickstart it suggested I try the Tutorial: Use the Transact-SQL editor to create database objects - Azure Data Studio. The tutorial taught me a couple of things that I’ve not noticed about Azure Data Studio, even though I’ve used it for a couple of years.

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Why NoSQL Database Adoption Is Not a One Way Journey

A coworker shared with me recently that a customer is wholly investing in adopting non-relational datastores.

“Is NoSQL taking over?” they asked.

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How to Enable TCP/IP in SQL Server Developer Edition, Even If the Configuration Manager Is Missing

SQL Server’s Developer Edition installs with a different default network protocol configuration than Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition.

Fixing this has gotten more complicated because it’s become common for the SQL Server Configuration Manager to not be installed on a developer’s workstation in an easily accessible way.

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How to Spell and Capitalize tempdb for SQL Server

No matter what I write in this post, some of y’all are going to tell me I’m wrong. That’s inevitable, because I’m writing about tempdb: a database so complex and mysterious in SQL Server, that even the spelling and capitalization of the database name is a topic of great disagreement.

Note: Nearly Everyone Has Been Inconsistent About This

You might think, “This is easy, just check Microsoft’s documentation to find the answer.”

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