Insights
Observations and notes drawn from work in the field.
Why Do We Brush Our Teeth for Two Minutes?
Back in the 1970s, my dentist told me to brush my teeth for two minutes. So did the people who occasionally came to my primary school to teach us how to look after our teeth. We all accepted it without question.
It took a few years in IT before I developed the habit of asking an irritatingly simple question about apparently arbitrary numbers: why?
When One Table Is Better Than Ten Thousand
A practical example of how an apparently simple schema design decision could have introduced significant long-term complexity, and why experienced database input is often most valuable early in a project.
When “Unused” Indexes Aren’t Unused
A practical example of why large, apparently unused indexes cannot be evaluated safely in isolation, and why schema context matters when making optimisation decisions.
Choosing the Right Database: When SQLite is the Better Option
A practical example of selecting SQLite over more complex database systems, based on the actual requirements of the application rather than defaulting to more complex solutions.
Diagnosing Oracle Performance Using Trace-Based Analysis
Practical use of Oracle 10046 trace data, following Cary Millsap’s Method-R approach, to diagnose performance issues that are not visible through aggregated statistics — including cases where response time varies unpredictably between fast and slow executions.