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Technical Article

Introducing the PASS Data Community Summit Keynotes from Microsoft, Redgate, and a Community Star

After meeting the stellar pre-con speakers and exploring the 5 learning pathways at #PASSDataSummit 2024, we’re excited to reveal the keynote lineup. Each day will kick off with inspiring keynotes from Microsoft, Redgate, and a special community-driven session led by industry experts. Don’t miss out on these insightful sessions designed to energize and empower you throughout PASS Summit 2024.

2024-10-07

External Article

Storing and Retrieving the Initialization and Configuration Data for Applications

All developers hit the problem of how and where to store and set their configuration, profile, or initial data. A long time ago, it was generally decided that simple text files containing key/values were best, stored with the application. After all, you are relying on being able to entice busy people to get the permanent settings right for their requirements, folks who are generally not interested in your elegant computer science constructs. Not only that, but the settings must be parsed very quickly and efficiently, otherwise a process that uses the tool will slow to a crawl.

2024-10-04

External Article

Bad Data and Dirty Databases

Many years ago, my wife and I wrote an article for Datamation, a major trade publication at the time, under the title, “Don’t Warehouse Dirty Data!” It’s been referenced quite a few times over the decades but is nowhere to be found using Google these days. The point is, if you have written a report using data, you have no doubt felt the pain of dirty data and it is nothing new.

2024-09-27

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Dynamic Unpivot

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I have a table I didn't design that has tons of repeating groups in...

Writing as an Art and a Job

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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String Similarity II

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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Question of the Day

String Similarity II

What is the range for the result from the EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY() function in SQL Server 2025?

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