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The third in a series of blogs covering common mistakes in Database and Application designs for financial calculations.
When working with float data types, order of operations will affect the ending value.
Python3:
justin@Debian10:~$ python3
Python 3.7.3 (default, Jul 25 2020, 13:03:44)
>>> (1234.567 * 3.333333) + (1.234567 * 3.333333)
4119.338,144,732,812
>>> (1234.567 + 1.234567 ) * 3.333333 …
The second in a series of blogs covering common mistakes in Database and Application designs for financial calculations.
This is probably the most common mistake in database design that I observe. It is understood to use exact data types (such as numeric) and the precision must be fixed, but for whatever reason the decision is made that it’s OK for one table to use numeric(12,4),a second table …
A series on the use of data types to insure accurate financial calculations with your application.
Over my multi-decade career, I have often noticed the problematic use of real, floating, double, and fixed precision types to store and calculate financials. Most believe the application only needs two digits to the right of the decimal point for financial data. The use of only two digits assumes that many financial calculations do …
When you have been around as long as Command Prompt, you are bound to forget blogs you wrote as well as the fact that those blogs are likely exceedingly outdated. I was recently doing a review of the Command Prompt Dead Sea Scrolls and have come across two that we have updated to be accurate for the modern times of PostgreSQL.
In the 2017 article we referenced to /r/postgresql which at the time had 5,100 members. It now has 25.5k. In the same time period as pgsql-general, it generated 175 messages among community members (20 posts, 155 responses). Similarly, we mentioned the Slack channel which at the time had 1100+ members. It now hosts 18.3k subscribers with similar activity of the subreddit. The People, Postgres, Data Discord, which did not exist in 2017, has 3,579 members and is quite active over its 28 channels. The listed collaboration venues don’t take into account the thousands of members among the international or associated (Brazil, Russia, TimescaleDB, Yugabyte, NeonDB, etc…) Postgres communities.
On Thursday and Friday of this week we will be enjoying 90 degree weather and sunshine in San Jose, California. It will be quite the change from the dark and damp of NW Washington. This is also the first time I will have been on an airplane in almost 3 years. Yes, it really has been that long since the world decided to begin a pandemic. That said, I am …
Over the last 25 years we have interviewed hundreds of people to be a part of our team. As with any good interview, you allow candidates to ask questions about the business, how you operate, what your philosophy looks like, and hopefully what your plan for the future is. My favorite is, “What is something you tell every employee?” Our answer is always the same, “We are never afraid to fire a client” and the response is almost universally “that’s refreshing.”
Recently I received a kind email from a client and friend in the Postgres Community. It struck a chord because she had listened to my podcast, hosted by Beautiful Strength, which was about having chronic illnesses while traveling in a bus and working full time.
Within the podcast, I reveal parts of myself that I don’t normally share with my team members, let alone with my clients. Until …
At Command Prompt, we rely heavily on peer review for the success of our clients. We believe that the best quality work is provided when there is no silo and when team work, no matter how much or how little, is a part of the day-to-day. When a group of individuals is encouraged to work together in an effort to provide high quality work and learn from each other, you’re …
Command Prompt has been providing infrastructure support to enterprises for over 20 years. As we are the only Postgres company still operating since the 90s, how is it that we’ve stayed standing? The answer is simple; we as a company and as a community firmly believe in the power of professional development. We frequently encourage everyone in our team, from interns to owners, to continue to learn and grow, both …