The Recording
The Panelists
- Kevin Feasel
- Mike Chrestensen
Notes: Questions and Topics
TriPASS Elections
It’s election season for TriPASS and we have a slate of electors up for vote. If you are a TriPASS member, you’ll have received an e-mail about this.
The Power of Anti-Semi-Joins
I learned something from Erik Darling. I’ve learned many things from Erik Darling, but this one was around NOT EXISTS versus 0 = (SELECT COUNT(*)...). It turns out that SQL Server has an optimization that makes both return the same execution plan. After the recording, I went and checked Postgres, which does not have the same optimization. This is yet another case of how behaviors in one platform may subtly differ from others.
Approximate Functions
Mike successfully side-tracked me and we talked a bit about the three approximation functions in SQL Server: APPROX_COUNT_DISTINCT, APPROX_PERCENTILE_CONT, and APPROX_PERCENTILE_DISC. I explained a bit about how they work, linked to some of the original academic papers, and described the difference between the continuous and discrete functions.
Tenant Switching in Microsoft Fabric
Our final topic of the night was from a Koen Verbeeck blog post, covering tenant switching in Microsoft Fabric and the Power BI Service. This is another example of the classic Microsoft pattern of developing something without designing in the ability to switch tenants / subscriptions / accounts.