Plurrrr

Mon 22 Aug 2022

Is COUNT(*) slow in MySQL?

You have probably read in a bunch of different places that you shouldn't use SELECT(*) in MySQL when you don't need all the data. SELECT(*) selects all the columns in the table, not just the ones that you might need. This is generally good advice! Limiting the amount of data that the database needs to return can increase performance.

Does the same warning apply to COUNT(*)? Is that something that should be avoided too? Why would you use the full width of the table columns when you're really just looking for a count of the rows?

That's a common misconception about COUNT(*), it doesn't use the full width of the table! While SELECT(*) selects all the columns, COUNT(*) is specifically optimized to count all the rows. The star means different things in different contexts.

Source: Is COUNT(*) slow in MySQL?, an article by Aaron Francis.

GIT Branching Strategies in 2022

In modern software development, speed and agility are crucial when it comes to developing and releasing software. However, when you have a large team of developers working simultaneously, branching and merging code can become messy fast.

Therefore, teams need to have a process in place to implement multiple changes at once. This is where having an efficient branching strategy becomes a priority for these teams.

Source: GIT Branching Strategies in 2022, an article by Manuel Herrera López.