Tag: T-SQL Tuesday

T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party on the second Tuesday of each month, designed to strengthen the SQL Server blog community.

More information is available on the T-SQL Tuesday site.

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Emotive Amiga Code

2023 07 11 EmotiveAmigaCode800600

In this post, I respond to July 2023’s T-SQL Tuesday #164 Invitation and talk about emotive code on the Amiga.

tsql tuesday

Table of Contents

Introduction

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday comes from Erik Darling. To paraphrase his invitation:

Think back to the last time you saw code that made you feel a thing. Hopefully a positive thing. Think along the lines of: surprise, awe, inspiration, excitement. Or maybe it was just code that sort of sunk its teeth into you and made you want to learn a whole lot more.

Now, while Erik’s invitation mentions the last time, I want to talk about the first time. This is an ideal opportunity to expand on something I wrote on my About page about AMOS tutorials. But before I start explaining why I consider some mid-nineties Amiga code to be emotive, I should explain a few things.

Key Topics

This section introduces some of the key topics I talk about in this post.

Amiga

The Amiga home computer was first released by Commodore in 1985, and was one of the first computers with custom graphics and sound hardware.

Amiga500 system
An Amiga 500

The Amiga was designed to compete with the Apple Macintosh and the IBM PC. It had a custom chipset and a multitasking operating system. These made the Amiga appeal to a wide range of audiences including:

The Amiga also had expansion capabilities, with various third-party add-ons available like the Video Toaster production tool. This allowed the Amiga to be used for visual effects in TV shows like Babylon 5 and SeaQuest DSV, and films like Apollo 13 and Titanic.

The Amiga Wikipedia page has information on history, chipsets, trivia and more.

Amiga Format

Amiga Format was a monthly UK computer magazine published from 1989 to 2000.

logo amiga format

Broadly, there were three types of Amiga magazines:

  • Game-focused magazines like Amiga Power (Yayyy – Ed).
  • Serious magazines like Amiga Shopper.
  • Magazines with some of both, like Amiga Format.

Amiga Format was about 50% games to 50% serious. This expanded to their coverdisks, with a fairly even split of utilities and game demos across each month’s disks.

My first Amiga Format was issue 30, purchased alongside the family Amiga 500+ Cartoon Classics bundle:

AmigaFormat iss30

And I still have them both! Young me chucked the magazine around a fair bit, so years later I bought a copy from eBay in better condition. I’ll get some photos on Instagram when I get a chance.

The Amiga Format Wikipedia page has some additional information including some regular features.

AMOS

AMOS (or to give its full name AMOS BASIC) is an Amiga dialect of the BASIC game programming language.

AMOSBox

First published in 1990 by Europress Software, AMOS was well received and sold over 40,000 copies worldwide.

Interaction comes via the AMOS Editor: a text editor with the AMOS language built into it. This allows users to type, edit, save and run AMOS programs from within the editor, without the need for a separate runtime tool or compiler.

amos

The AMOS Wikipedia page goes into more technical detail, and this PowerPrograms page has a user’s AMOS perspective.

In addition, AMOS Professional has a GitHub repo, and I would be remiss if I didn’t include Dan Wood’s excellent AMOS retrospective video:

From AMOS To YAML

In this section, I talk about the Amiga code that ended up being so emotive and indirectly set my future career in motion.

Scene Setting

It’s Christmas 1992, and I’m a young shark pup still in single digits. I hit the newsagent’s magazine shelves with pocket money in hand and buy that month’s Amiga Format:

AmigaFormat iss42

Yes – it does say January 1993 on the cover. Before writing this post I never had a good explanation for this, so I reached out to the Amiga Addict Discord for some clarity.

It turns out that, during this period, Amiga Format produced issues every four weeks instead of monthly. Former Amiga Format editor Marcus Dyson speaks about this at around 38:30 in Maximum Power Up podcast episode 139.

But anyway.

Throughout 1992, Amiga Format’s coverdisks featured a series of fully-functional software packages known as The Amiga Format Collection. This collection included:

  • Fractal landscape generator Vista (AF33)
  • HAM paint and animation package Spectracolor Jr (AF35)
  • Machine code assembler Devpac 2 (AF39)

Adorning Amiga Format 42’s cover was AMOS:

af42 1993 01 d1

I’d read about AMOS before. Amiga Format issue 35 had a demo of Easy AMOS, and even the games-centric Amiga Power mentioned AMOS in its Public Domain section. And now, suddenly every Amiga Format buyer had an unrestricted copy of it.

Amiga Format partnered this with a Learning AMOS magazine section. Basic principles, syntax and screenshots were introduced across nine pages, with the tenth page having a tutorial for a scrolling text demo. This was to be the first part of a monthly Mastering AMOS series.

What A Pong

Now, young me didn’t pay much attention to this part of issue 42. It was Christmas after all, and I had demos of Lemmings 2, Fire & Ice and Bill’s Tomato Game to keep me busy!

Enter Amiga Format issue 43. This month’s AMOS tutorial was Solo Pong – a simple version of Pong with the player controlling both bats. This was deliberate – the focus here was on learning AMOS as opposed to learning coding.

Young me was intrigued! The scrolling demo didn’t really appeal, but this was a game! The complete script was only half a page long, and the tutorial explained each line. So I gave it a shot, and within an afternoon I had my very own Pong clone!

2023 07 07 solopong

The code itself made no sense to me – I was copying words from a magazine onto a screen and hoping for the best. But I found the process itself captivating. The idea that all the software I’d run on my Amiga was made by words on a screen – and words that I could type myself at that – was a revelation!

On an unrelated note, Amiga Format 43 included the last of the Amiga Format Collection series – the database package Prodata. So not only did issue 43 introduce me to coding – it also foreshadowed my eventual tech career!

Mastering AMOS Legacy

Amiga Format continued the Mastering AMOS series until issue 51. They went on to include AMOS Professional with issue 67, and ran an Ultimate AMOS tutorial series from issue 68 to issue 73.

Damien Junior didn’t do much more with the Mastering AMOS series after Amiga Format 43. I vaguely remember having a go at the Amiga Format 44 tutorial, which added some bells and whistles to the existing Pong code. But after that, it started going over my head and I lost interest. Although to be fair, I was a child!

The coding curiosity remained. As the 1990s went by I found myself trying out Amiga Format’s DevPac 2 and Blitz Basic tutorials, and by the end of the 1990s I was learning Excel formulae and VBScript at school. During the 2000s I started using HTML, CSS and PHP, and began using T-SQL, Powershell and DAX at work in the 2010s.

Which brings me to the present day, where I find myself learning Python and experimenting with reStructuredText (for Read The Docs) and YAML (for CloudFormation). And I thought, after thirty years, why not revisit the Amiga Format tutorial and see how I feel about AMOS now?

Thirty Years Later

Like many self-respecting Amiga fans I have WinUAE installed on my laptop, and an ADF of the AMOS coverdisk isn’t hard to find. So I fired everything up! And, after thirty minutes of typing, squinting and error troubleshooting, witness the result of my mighty endeavour – SHARK PONG:

2023 07 07 sharkpong

I clearly wasn’t squinting hard enough though. In this script, AMOS uses the ball’s X coordinate to determine if a player has lost. Where the tutorial’s LOSE conditions are:

If X>=320 Then LOSE : Goto RESTART
If X<=-20 Then LOSE : Goto RESTART

I missed the minus in the second IF statement and wrote:

If X<=20 Then LOSE : Goto RESTART

Thus creating a version of Shark Pong that Left Paddle can never win, as the losing X coordinate is in front of the paddle:

SharkPongFail

But then again, it wouldn’t be an early 90s tutorial follow-along without an unintended and slightly hilarious bug, right? And the command to stop running the code? Control-C. That broke my brain briefly.

But yeah. Revisiting the same code that captivated me 30 years ago was a blast! The original tutorial code is in my GitHub for those curious to see it, both as an unformatted text file and in glorious BlitzBasic!

Further Reading

Summary

In this post, I responded to July 2023’s T-SQL Tuesday #164 Invitation and talked about emotive code on the Amiga.

I had a lot of fun writing this! A phrase like ’emotive Amiga code’ might not sound fascinating on paper, but it was interesting to revisit that tutorial after so long. I even finally answered a question that’s lingered in my head for a few decades.

Thanks to Erik for this month’s topic! My previous T-SQL Tuesday posts are here. If this post has been useful, please feel free to follow me on the following platforms for future updates:

Thanks for reading ~~^~~

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Training & Community

T-SQL Tuesday #160: Round-Up

OilPaintingSharkRobotGenieReverseHue

In this post, I write a round-up of the community responses to my March 2023 T-SQL Tuesday #160 invitation: Microsoft OpenAI Wishlist.

tsql tuesday

Table of Contents

Introduction

Earlier this month, I hosted March 2023’s T-SQL Tuesday with an invitation concerning the ongoing Microsoft and OpenAI partnership:

What is on your wishlist for the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI?

What follows is some commentary on, and links to, each of the responses.

Chad Callihan

Chad’s post considers potential PowerShell-OpenAI functionality, which would write scripts in response to user prompts. PowerShell is a mainstay of many data professionals, enabling modules like dbatools, Pester and the AWS, Azure and GCP SDKs. An AI with access to the PowerShell Gallery would be very helpful.

Chad also points out some security concerns linked with ChatGPT use, which are good advice in general:

Chris Johnson

Chris’s post considers an AI model for file ingestion. Data pipelines frequently rely on source data with specific types and layouts. Unfortunately, source data can change between ingestion times.

At best, this breaks pipelines and causes problems and downtime for data teams. At worst, incorrect data is ingested causing potential business and customer detriment.

A no-code AI model would save hours of work if it considered previous source data and could make decisions like “This column is formatted as VARCHAR, but yesterday it was DATETIME2 and has hyphens in the right place, so I’ll CAST it as DATETIME2 today and raise a warning in the log.”

Rob Farley

Rob’s post was partially written by ChatGPT! Rob takes a pragmatic approach to AI’s progress and draws a Clippy analogy. I really want to see this AI family tree now.

ChatGPT suggests that it can help with Excel formulae, SQL Server optimization and PowerPoint visuals. It also wants to democratize technology interaction and remove traditional barriers to entry.

Steve Jones

Steve’s post imagines the next generation of AI personal assistant. One that can:

  • Learn from the user and correct common errors in all applications.
  • Suggest code optimizations in a variety of IDEs and languages.
  • Learn the user’s schedule and create automated calendar events and reminders.
  • Recognise repeat tasks and create related automation.

Summary

In this post, I wrote a round-up of the community responses to my March 2023 T-SQL Tuesday #160 invitation: Microsoft OpenAI Wishlist.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to my first T-SQL Tuesday invitation. It was great to read your responses! Anyone interested in hosting future events should contact Steve Jones.

If this post has been useful, please feel free to follow me on the following platforms for future updates:

Thanks for reading ~~^~~

Categories
Training & Community

T-SQL Tuesday #160: Microsoft OpenAI Wishlist

OilPaintingSharkRobotGenie

In this post, I host March 2023’s T-SQL Tuesday with an invitation concerning the ongoing Microsoft and OpenAI partnership.

tsql tuesday

Table of Contents

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence has been a big deal in recent months. One of the main drivers of this has been OpenAI, whose DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT services have seen extraordinary public interest and participation.

ChatGPT is currently the fastest-growing consumer application in history It reached 100 million users in its first two months, and has been integrated into numerous applications. One such example is the recent version of DBeaver that I tried out in my previous post.

Microsoft has been one of OpenAI’s most prominent supporters. In July 2019 Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI and became their exclusive cloud provider.

In January 2023 Microsoft announced the latest phase of its multibillion-dollar investment partnership with OpenAI and the general availability of Azure OpenAI Service. Since then, Microsoft announced that it is building AI technology into Microsoft Bing, Edge and Microsoft 365.

T-SQL Tuesday Invitation

My invitation for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday is:

What is on your wishlist for the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI?

This can include all Microsoft products and services, like:

When posting, please remember the T-SQL Tuesday rules:

  1. Publish contributions on Tuesday 14 March 2023.
  2. Include the T-SQL Tuesday Logo and have it link to this post.
  3. Please add your post’s link in this post’s comments.
  4. Use the #tsql2sday hashtag on social media.

My Wishlist

In this section, I’ll get the ball rolling with some things I’d like to see!

Power BI AI Assistant

Microsoft Power BI is a data visualization tool. It can interact with dozens of data sources and integrates with a wide range of applications. Power BI includes numerous visualizations and can produce professional, functional, and feature-rich dashboards.

However, Power BI is reliant on user skill levels. Like all data visualization tools, Power BI can create bad dashboards in the wrong hands. Like, really bad. Dashboards can suffer from several problems that make them useless at best and misleading at worst.

Enter ChatGPT. Power BI already offers AI Insights and AI Visuals. ChatGPT could join this family of tools, using an AI model trained on the works of visual design specialists like Edward Tufte, Stephen Few and Kate Strachnyi.

ChatGPT could offer features like:

  • Creating visuals and reports based on text prompts:
"Show me how my team's sales are performing this month"
>> Here is a bar chart showing team member performance for the current month.
  • Suggesting visuals and reports based on the data sources available.
  • Assessing dashboards for factors like colour blindness and colour symbolism.
  • Optimising existing dashboards:
"Improve my annual sales dashboard"
>> I have changed the pie chart showing 12 team members to a bar chart, as this will improve the visualization's legibility.

Azure IAC AI Assistant

IAC (Infrastructure As Code) has revolutionized the public cloud industry, bringing with it benefits like:

  • Automated, faster deployments.
  • Repeatable and consistent deployments.
  • Self-documenting infrastructure.

But IAC also presents challenges:

  • IAC scripts rely on the skills of the engineer writing them.
  • Configurations can drift or have unintended consequences.
  • It’s not easy to incorporate existing infrastructure.

ChatGPT could resolve many of these problems, turning infrastructure creation into a conversation. It could, for example:

  • Create infrastructure based on non-technical requests:
"Make me what I need to start a blog."
>> I have created a LAMP stack on a virtual machine in your default region.  Your access details are here:

Username: Username
Password: Password
  • Learn current infrastructure usage patterns and create optimisations for busy and quiet periods.
  • Spot potential conflicts and step in to prevent data loss or downtime.
ClippyProduction
Compliments of the IMGFlip Clippy Meme Generator
  • Make existing infrastructure faster, cheaper or more performant without the need for manual refactoring.
  • Resolve problems like high latency, failing connections and unexpected cost increases:
"Why is my web app generating errors?"
>> One of your virtual machines does not allow connection requests from CIDR range 10.01.10.01/28.  Do you want me to fix this?

"Yes please."
>> I have now amended virtual machine MYAPP001's Network Security Group to accept incomming connection requests from CIDR range 10.01.10.01/28.

Summary

In this post, I hosted March 2023’s T-SQL Tuesday with an invitation concerning the ongoing Microsoft and OpenAI partnership. I look forwards to reading everyone’s responses!

If this post has been useful, please feel free to follow me on the following platforms for future updates:

Thanks for reading ~~^~~