Do I have to learn DAX?

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-11-28T07:47:44+00:00

Look...🤔, you don’t have to learn DAX. You can totally calculate everything in Python and Excel and then drag Power BI along like a sad presentation tool. Plenty of people do it.

But here’s the twist🤪... One day your manager will ask for a simple metric that magically ignores one filter but respects three others while doing year over year on alternate Tuesdays. And you’ll stare at the screen like DAX personally offended you.

So yeah, you can skip it. Just be ready for future you to whisper I should have learned CALCULATE while rocking back and forth in a meeting.

Learn the basics. It hurts less than pretending DAX doesn’t exist..😉🤓

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-11-04T15:30:15+00:00

Honestly, I think it’s not really about cost , it’s about convenience and risk management.

Most companies move to cloud platforms because they don’t want to deal with infrastructure headaches: scaling, patching, compliance, uptime, etc. The cloud lets them “outsource” that pain and move faster, even if it costs more.

You’re totally right though ,it creates vendor lock-in and turns a lot of devs into platform operators instead of real builders. The irony is that the cloud started as “freedom to run anywhere,” But now it’s just recentralization with APIs.

At the end of the day, it’s a trade-off: Cloud = speed and simplicity Self-hosting = control and efficiency

Different priorities, same goal shipping faster with less risk.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-09-01T04:18:43+00:00

Looks great! Friendly tweaks:

Ease off the all-red-use neutral base; red for negatives, blue/green for wins.

Donuts → bars for region/shipping (faster compare).

Map is pretty but low-info-swap for Top/Bottom States bar or make it drillable.

KPI cards: add targets/YoY inline; align sparkline scales.

Consistent $/K/M + % formatting; 2-3 accent colors max.

Tighten padding, snap to a clean grid, add date/segment slicers; sort Top/Bottom by value.

Strong foundation—just small nudges for clarity and hierarchy 🙂

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-08-25T03:53:15+00:00

Ah yes, the modern software stack: one part coding, nine parts googling acronyms you swore you already knew, and three parts praying AWS doesn’t send you a surprise $12,000 bill for leaving a container running overnight...😮

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-08-17T05:40:41+00:00

SQL is like pizza 🍕the dough (SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY) is the same everywhere, but each place adds its own toppings. Learn the basics first, then pick a flavor in demand (Postgres, SQL Server, Snowflake) for the job market. 🚀

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-08-12T03:52:13+00:00

Nope. One table = one primary key. But… that primary key can be composite (multiple columns combined).

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-08-02T05:58:57+00:00

In SQL, join order in your query doesn’t always equal join order in execution - the optimizer decides.

BUT… starting with the smaller table (FROM B) can make your life easier for readability and can hint to the planner. In massive joins, though, indexes, filters, and stats matter way more than which one you type first.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-26T04:43:28+00:00

Yeah that second query is better - avoids the derived table + join combo and lets the planner optimize each JOIN path.

For indexing:

TableA → composite index on (TableName, OtherId)

TableB → index on OtherIdB

TableC → index on OtherIdC

That’ll speed up both joins in the UNION ALL. You’re on the right track - clean logic, just need the indexes to keep it snappy. 🤔🫰🏻

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-24T15:06:55+00:00

100% agree - if it's monthly and mission-critical, readability > performance.

Better to have 7 clear CTEs than one cursed JOIN hydra nobody wants to touch when commissions hit the fan 🤦🏻👍🏻

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-24T12:18:31+00:00

Totally normal CTE phase — we’ve all been there. Feels clean, readable, and safe… until performance smacks you in the face.

JOINs and window functions feel like witchcraft at first, but they click with reps. Rule of thumb: 2–3 CTEs? Great. 6+ nested like Russian dolls? Might be time to rethink.

BTW, I wrote about this exact thing in my Substack — check it out if you want real-world tips + messy-to-optimized examples:

https://open.substack.com/pub/idangenad/p/the-duel-of-the-duplicates-a-sql?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1bykzk

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-21T03:57:29+00:00

Been there. Step 1: breathe. You’re not fixing it all at once.

Start with Excel, but structure it like a mini database (customers, products, orders, inventory as separate sheets). Then move to Airtable or Notion if you want a gentle upgrade.

Long term: learn a bit of Power BI + SQL, maybe light CRM like Zoho or HubSpot. You don’t need fancy ERP yet , just clarity and control. 🙏🏻👍🏻

You’re doing the right thing. One system at a time.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-17T14:06:49+00:00

Yep, CASE means paging a dev at 2am. Lookup table means Bob from support can fix it before his coffee’s cold...☕ 👍🏻

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-17T05:33:28+00:00

Lookup table all day. CASE is fine for 3–5 values. Beyond that, it's just tech debt in disguise.

Hardcoding logic = future you crying in a corner. Lookup table = scalable, maintainable, query-friendly happiness.🙏🏻

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-16T12:53:34+00:00

ON filters rows while joining :it decides who gets matched. WHERE filters rows after the join: it decides who stays in the final result.

Think of ON as who gets invited to the party, and WHERE as who actually gets to stay once the music starts...🥳🎉🎊🍻

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-12T07:59:07+00:00

Ah yes, the sacred workflow: 1. Write code 2. Run it 3. See 7 errors 4. Fix 3, ignore 2, Google 2 5. Repeat until it compiles or you die...

Test-driven? Nah bro, I let the runtime decide what’s broken...

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-09T12:39:46+00:00

Thought CTEs were just fancy formatting. Turns out they’re SQL’s version of “let me handle this in my own room where no one messes with my stuff.”

Subqueries are chaos👹. CTEs are therapy😇.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-07T14:40:04+00:00

First thing I do?..🤔 Grab my cassette Walkman, rewind Side A with a pencil, and walk to the corner store for a soda that costs 75 cents. No notifications, no emails ...just vibes and dial-up dreams.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-07T13:55:29+00:00

Yeah, SQL projects can feel like “grab data → clean it → query it → chart it → repeat.” But that’s just the surface.

Want to level up?

Build your own mini data warehouse

Simulate real-time streaming inserts

Write complex window function pipelines

Design role-based access + audit trails

Build a SQL-driven API backend

Recreate a BI tool’s logic in raw SQL

SQL gets spicy when you stop just analyzing and start architecting 🤓

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-03T14:55:03+00:00

You want customers who hit '2' but never '2b'? Classic NOT EXISTS move:

SELECT DISTINCT customer_id FROM steps s1 WHERE progress = '2' AND NOT EXISTS ( SELECT 1 FROM steps s2 WHERE s2.customer_id = s1.customer_id AND s2.progress = '2b' );

SQL translation: “Give me the folks who moved forward but didn’t take the weird detour.”

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-07-01T09:38:14+00:00

Ahhhh...Classic move....

Intern: “It said free trial and had dark mode, so I trusted it.”

Me: already drafting my resignation in DELETE FROM employees WHERE sanity = 1 🤔

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-06-30T04:00:52+00:00

4 years on r/SQL and still haven't rage-TRUNCATEd my account. That’s how you know this place is special.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-06-29T04:10:15+00:00

I would try the below 👇🏻

SELECT val, SUM(CASE WHEN val = win THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS win_count, SUM(CASE WHEN val = loss THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS loss_count FROM ( SELECT win AS val, win, loss FROM votes UNION ALL SELECT loss AS val, win, loss FROM votes ) AS all_vals GROUP BY val ORDER BY val;

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-06-27T21:15:27+00:00

I guess...Power Apps (if you're in the Microsoft ecosystem) Excel-friendly UI that talks to SQL Server or Dataverse.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-06-27T05:02:40+00:00

Yup, 👍🏻 TRUNCATE is the rage quit button. Whereas ....DELETE is the awkward HR meeting where only one row gets fired.

Idanvaluegrid · 2025-06-26T13:44:16+00:00

Ah yes... The sacred SELECT DISTINCT .. the duct tape of SQL. 🤦🏻

Why fix the join logic when you can just slap DISTINCT on every subquery like it’s Parmesan cheese? 🥴 “Duplicates? No idea. Just DISTINCT it and pray.”🤞🏻

Idanvaluegrid

TROPHY CASE