Twenty years ago, I would have laughed if you had told me I'd be promoting databases as the technology to turn to. Back then, databases were just a 'dummy' storage for me—a necessary evil, a sentiment shared by many developers. At that point, I felt so strongly about it that I was a trainer for Hibernate, a tool which helped me keep those pesky databases at arm's length.
Fast forward, and here I am, starting boringSQL, a site dedicated to helping demystify the depths of SQL and databases in general. Whether you've just started or want to gain expert knowledge. What changed, you might ask? Nothing actually. Well, a few things did. The frameworks changed. I moved from the Java world to Rails, jumped to Python and then to Go, worked with countless frontend paradigms, and oversaw the implementation of a number of technologies. The same experiments were tried again and again. Only one part of the tech stood the test of time. Yes, it's the database. And out of many, one in particular—PostgreSQL. And while alternatives promised, and still promise, that the grass would be greener—I can honestly say that whatever revolution comes in the technology landscape, databases will hold the same place in the next twenty years.
This is not the first boring site, and rest assured, the concept of celebrating the mundane in technology is far from new. The tech landscape is paved with many "boring" things, from frameworks to methodologies to complete stacks. Businesses depend on these technologies to run their operations day in, day out. And while it might be fun to try new things every month, it's not the headline-driven development that is the way forward.
Hence, if you ask—is SQL boring? Are databases boring? I would also say YES. They are among the finalists of the least popular conversation starters. But it's the quiet power of reliability that has a healing effect in a world where technology changes at the speed of light.