The art of SQL
For all the buzz about trendy IT techniques, data processing is still at the core of our systems, especially now that enterprises all over the world are confronted with exploding volumes of data. Database performance has become a major headache, and most IT departments believe that developers should provide simple SQL code to solve immediate problems and let DBAs tune any "bad SQL" later. In The Art of SQL, author and SQL expert Stephane Faroult argues that this "safe approach" only leads to disaster. His insightful book, named after Art of War by Sun Tzu, contends that writing quick inefficient code is sweeping the dirt under the rug. SQL code may run for 5 to 10 years, surviving several major releases of the database management system and on several generations of hardware. The code must be fast and sound from the start, and that requires a firm understanding of SQL and relational theory. The Art of SQL offers best practices that teach experienced SQL users to focus on strategy rather than specifics. Faroult's approach takes a page from Sun Tzu's classic treatise by viewing database design as a military campaign. You need knowledge, skills, and talent. Talent can't be taught, but every strategist from Sun Tzu to modern-day generals believed that it can be nurtured through the experience of others. They passed on their experience acquired in the field through basic principles that served as guiding stars amid the sound and fury of battle. This is what Faroult does with SQL.
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- I don't have any one complete book that I can recommend, and I don't even really have a great reading list for this. But I'll make an attempt to share what I think is useful as a starting point.
1. Systems Operations is first and foremost about understanding systems, in all of their complexity, which means understanding the internals of your OS primarily.
2. Performance and networking, in particular, are super important areas to focus on understanding when it comes to learning the topic to help with software development.
3. A lot of it is about understanding concepts in abstract and being able to extrapolate to other situations and apply these concepts, so there's actually quite a lot of useful information that can be learned on one OS and still applied to another OS (or on one game engine and applied to another, et al).
Here's a few books I think are worth reading, not in any particular order of prevalence, but loosely categorized
Databases:
High Performance MySQL: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449314287/
SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321992474/
The Art of SQL: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596008945/
Networking:
TCP/IP Illustrated: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0201633469/wrichards... (updates on author's site at http://www.kohala.com/start/tcpipiv1.html)
The TCP/IP Guide: https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Guide-Comprehensive-Illustrated-P...
UNIX Network Programming: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0131411551
Beej's Guide to Network Programming: http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/
Operating Systems:
Operating Systems Concepts: https://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Sil... (various editions, I have the 7th edition... I recommend you find the latest)
Modern Operating Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Operating-Systems-Andrew-Tanen... (the "Tanenbaum Book")
Operating Systems Design and Implementation: https://www.amazon.com/Operating-Systems-Design-Implementat-... (the other one, the "MINIX Book")
Windows Internals:
Part 1: https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Internals-Part-architecture-m...
Part 2: https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Internals-Part-2-7th/dp/01354... (I had the pleasure of being taught from this book by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon at a previous employer, was an amazing class and these books are incredible resources even applied outside of Windows, we used 5th edition, I linked 7th, which has the 2nd part pending publication).
MacOS Internals:
Part 1: https://www.amazon.com/MacOS-iOS-Internals-User-Mode/dp/0991...
Part 2: https://www.amazon.com/MacOS-iOS-Internals-II-Kernel/dp/0991...
Part 3: https://www.amazon.com/MacOS-iOS-Internals-III-Insecurity/dp...
Linux Kernel Programming:
Part 1: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Development-Cookbook-pro...
Part 2: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Programming-Part-Synchro...
The Linux Programming Interface: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
General Systems Administration:
Essential Systems Administration: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596003439/
UNIX and Linux Systems Administration Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Hand...
The Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Shell-Scripting-Bible/d...
UNIX Shell Programming: https://www.amazon.com/Unix-Shell-Programming-Stephen-Kochan...
BASH Hackers Wiki: https://wiki.bash-hackers.org/
TLDP Advanced BASH Scripting Guide: https://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
The Debian Administrator's Handbook: https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/
TLDP Linux System Administrator's Guide: https://tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/index.html
Performance & Benchmarking:
Systems Performance: https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Performance-Brendan-Gregg-dp-... (this is Brendan Gregg's book where you learn about the magic of dtrace)
BPF Performance Tools: https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tools-Addison-Wesley-Prof... (the newer Brendan Gregg book about BPF, stellar)
The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: https://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/books/perfbook.htm (no longer available from Amazon, but is available direct from publisher. This is basically the one book you should read about creating and structuring benchmarks or performance tests)
I guess that's a "reading list", but this is just a small part of what you need to know to excel in systems operations.
I would say for the typical software developer writing web applications, the most important thing to know is how databases work and how networking works, since these are going to be the primary items affecting your application performance. But there's obviously topics not included in this list that are also worth understanding, such as browser/DOM internals, how caching and CDNs work, and web-specific optimizations that can be achievable with HTTP/2 or QUIC.
For the average software developer writing desktop applications, I'd say make sure you /really/ understand OS internals... at the base everything you do on a computer system is based on what the OS provides to you. Even though you are abstracted (possibly many layers) away from this, being able to peel back the layers and understand what's /really/ happening is essential to writing high-quality application code that is performant and secure, as well as making you a champ at debugging issues.
If you're trying to get into systems operations as a field, this is just a brush over the top surface and there's a lot deeper diving required.
- We all know the popular ones, but I would like to hear about the not-so-popular ones that are still worth reading. I'll start:
- The Art of SQL by Stéphane Faroult
That's it. It's a bit hard to come up with more, so I don't expect a huge list of books in this thread.
- Adding to the above, Schönig's Mastering PostgreSQL 11 will help you advance from intermediate to high-intermediate PostgreSQL programmer, as will Faroult's The Art of SQL. Karwin's SQL Antipatterns is useful supplementary reading also.
I've looked through my kindle, and I wouldn't bother with much else.
- A billion "Up" for The Art of SQL by Faroult
- I really liked 'The Art of SQL', Stephane Faroult
- i love redis and have been using in production for over five years. But i'm interested to read the story of this fork because the practicioner-focused redis book this guy wrote is one of the best software-related texts i've read in the past 7 - 8 years. ("Statistical Rethinking" by Richard McElreath, and "The Art of SQL" by Stephane Faroult are two others that had the same impact)
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