--- title: "How human gene names are confusing Excel" publication: "DB Weekly" issue: 316 published_at: "2020-08-07" canonical_url: "https://dbweekly.com/issues/316" --- Plus more database news, views, and links. #316 — August 7, 2020 [Read on the Web](https://dbweekly.com/issues/316) Database Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/d3jgiirpoz8pjfxczew7.jpg)](https://robertovitillo.com/what-every-developer-should-know-about-database-consistency/) [What Every Developer Should Know About Database Consistency](https://robertovitillo.com/what-every-developer-should-know-about-database-consistency/) — As a Distributed Systems Engineer at Microsoft you’d expect Roberto to know a bit about consistency, and he does a good job of explaining the basics at a high level here. Roberto Vitillo [Scientists Rename Human Genes to Stop Excel From Misreading Them As Dates](https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-rename-microsoft-excel-misreading-dates) — If you’ve spent more than 5 seconds with a spreadsheet, you’ll have encountered some sort of data formatting or detection snafu, and biochemists working with human genes aren’t immune to this either. I always find it interesting to see the inadvertent effects software and database design decisions can have on the real world. James Vincent [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/da9f260f.png)](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/guides/oreilly-architect-for-scale/?utm_campaign=cooperpress-2020-Q3&utm_source=db-weekly&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=oreilly-architect-for-scale) [Free O’Reilly eBook Excerpt: Architecting for Scale](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/guides/oreilly-architect-for-scale/?utm_campaign=cooperpress-2020-Q3&utm_source=db-weekly&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=oreilly-architect-for-scale) — In this practical guide written by a distributed systems expert, learn how to build apps that scale to handle unpredictable traffic with zero downtime for customers. Cockroach Labs sponsor [Postgres Weekly: Our Sister PostgreSQL Newsletter](https://postgresweekly.com/) — We do a bad job of promoting our other newsletters because we often get emails from people asking for newsletters we’ve been running for years 😂 So if you’re a Postgres user, we wanted to make sure you’re familiar with Postgres Weekly which has been going for seven years now! Here’s [the latest issue.](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/367) Cooperpress [Big Data Apps Wasting Billions in the Cloud](https://www.datanami.com/2020/07/29/big-data-apps-wasting-billions-in-the-cloud/) — Where there are big budgets and huge amounts of data, there’s going to be wasted capacity, and Pepperdata has dug into just how much. Datanami [Direct Lambda Resolvers: AWS AppSync GraphQL APIs without VTL](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mobile/appsync-direct-lambda/) — AWS AppSync is a managed serverless GraphQL service for building APIs. VTL (Velocity Template Language) is used to translate GraphQL requests into queries for an underlying data source.. but these are now optional when integrating AppSync with Lambda due to _Direct Lambda Resolvers_ which let you create resolver logic in any runtime supported by Lambda. Ed Lima (AWS) [Use `NATURAL FULL JOIN` to Compare Two Tables in SQL](https://blog.jooq.org/2020/08/05/use-natural-full-join-to-compare-two-tables-in-sql/) — _“`NATURAL JOIN` is syntax sugar for joining using all the shared column names of the two tables, and the `FULL JOIN` makes sure we can retrieve also the columns that are not matched by the join predicate.”_ Lukas Eder [DZone’s Latest Report on Distributed Databases, Sponsored by Yugabyte](https://www.yugabyte.com/dzone-database-report-2020/?utm_source=db_weekly&utm_medium=sponsored_link&utm_campaign=aug072020) — A new trend report by DZone dives into real-world usage of SQL and NoSQL databases across a variety of organizations. YugabyteDB sponsor [How Subqueries Were Implemented in a Go-Powered SQL Engine](https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2020-08-05-implementing-subqueries/) — There’s a few moving parts here, but basically [Dolt](https://github.com/liquidata-inc/dolt) is like Git for data and the underlying SQL engine is [go-mysql-server](https://github.com/liquidata-inc/go-mysql-server/), a MySQL wire protocol compatible SQL server and engine. Zach Musgrave [Pretending to Have a SQL Database with RStudio](https://medium.com/@skyetetra/pretending-to-have-a-sql-database-with-rstudio-e80d9a1338b1) — How you can support a person who loves SQL (e.g. a data analyst) without setting up a SQL server. Jacqueline Nolis ▶[The Top 10 Developer Mistakes That Won't Scale on Microsoft SQL Server](https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2020/08/video-the-top-10-developer-mistakes-that-wont-scale-on-microsoft-sql-server/) — If you’re a C# or Java developer using SQL Server, you should find this valuable to help you avoid some common pitfalls. Brent Ozar [TreSQL: A Shorthand SQL/JDBC Wrapper Language](https://github.com/mrumkovskis/tresql) — A query language built on top of SQL that can select data into hierarchical JSON objects. Written in Scala on top of JDBC. Martins Rumkovskis [Monstache 6.7: A Daemon That Syncs MongoDB to Elasticsearch in Realtime](https://github.com/rwynn/monstache) Ryan Wynn 💼 Job [DevOps Engineer at X-Team (Remote)](https://x-team.com/remote-devops-engineer-jobs/?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=email-ad&utm_campaign=db) — Join the most energizing community for developers and work on projects for Riot Games, FOX, Sony, Coinbase, and more. 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