This month’s invitation is from Mala Mahadevan, who has hosted 5 times. This latest one is one that is near and dear to my heart as I use source control most days and I think it’s important for database code.
I’ll explain why below, but I’m glad to see this as a topic. We have a wide variety of technical topics being proposed, but not a lot about software engineering as a discipline, which is part of what version control is. Not building features, but better managing your process.
If you want to host a T-SQL Tuesday, ping me.
Capturing Database Code
There are many ways to capture code, but I work for Redgate Software, so I use Flyway. Since I work there, I get a paid version, but I work with customers all the time and see a variety of things. If I didn’t have Redgate tools, I’d likely use something like SQL Compare to capture off database code, since that’s easy. Or SMO through SSMS.
As for how I work with code, I use Git to store the code. Git is ubiquitous and I rarely find customers without Git. Sometimes the data teams aren’t using it or don’t know how, but that’s why I’ve written some Git articles on getting started.
I also try to work in branches, with a protected main branch. This means no one can commit code to main, but rather need to commit it elsewhere and use a PR (pull request) to move the code into main. I do this with a lot of customers, helping them understand how to use version control to manage their code.
For my git work, I primarily work in GitHub in public repos. I’m at https://github.com/way0utwest, where I keep a lot of sample projects for things I work on with customers to demonstrate how to use Redgate tools, or just manage code better.
There are lots of ways to capture code, format it, and deploy it. However, you should use git and learn to manage your code within a team. I’d also suggest you use Flyway to deploy the code. There is an OSS version, and because it supports many platforms, if your company adopts PostgreSQL or DataBricks, you can still use a similar process to deploy code. Learn it and use it.
But first, get code into a Git repo.