During my technical career, I’ve changed companies several times. I even worked as an independent contractor for three years. One thing I have never done before was switch departments and roles within one company. That’s about to change in a couple of weeks as I move from Simple Talk Editor and DevOps Advocate in Marketing […]
2022-05-21
95 reads
You’ve probably heard that SQL Server 2022 is on the way, and, assuming the name doesn’t change, it will be later this year. That is great news for folks in the data platform community as features and improvements they’ve been hoping for are added. I’m not currently supporting any production SQL Servers, but I’m still […]
2022-04-30
111 reads
Some organizations have policies in place to make sure that everything in their IT infrastructure is documented. There are runbooks, procedures, wikis, diagrams, charts, code comments, and more to make sure that knowledge is available if an employee leaves or when disaster strikes. Not only does the documentation exist, but it’s also organized and easy […]
2022-04-09
197 reads
Last week I attended my first in-person event in over two years. SQLBits, the largest data platform conference in Europe, was a hybrid event and marked the first time many of us met in person in ages. It was a huge success as folks from around the world gathered to learn...and celebrate! I heard several […]
2022-03-19
93 reads
Becoming overly enthusiastic about a new SQL Server feature can backfire if you don’t do some testing. One example is the table variable introduced with SQL Server 2000. At the time, there was a myth that table variables would always perform better than temp tables with the reasoning that, by definition, variables are stored in […]
2022-02-26
268 reads
I haven’t done it much the past few years, but I would answer some programming questions posted in forums back in the day. In the late 90s, I answered Visual Basic questions and eventually switched to SQL Server questions here on SQL Server Central as my career progressed. Answering questions not only assisted someone else, […]
2022-02-05
105 reads
Some of the most problematic T-SQL code I’ve seen over the years originated because the developer approached T-SQL with techniques more suitable for developing applications. I often saw these issues in my consulting days and always took the opportunity to teach the customer instead of only fixing the problems. One reason is that SQL is […]
2022-01-15
206 reads
I’ve been teaching T-SQL to groups of students since 2014 at the non-profit LaunchCode in St. Louis. LaunchCode provides free tech training, paid apprenticeships, and career support to hundreds of people who have the ability and interest but not always the opportunity to land tech careers. For example, not having a college degree can eliminate […]
2021-12-31
381 reads
Back in the late 90s, I had one large book on my desk with everything I needed – or thought I needed -- to know about SQL Server. It covered T-SQL, installation, backups, security, and more. Over the years, Microsoft has added components like SQL Server Integration Services and features like windowing functions and improved […]
2021-12-11
354 reads
The 2021 virtual PASS Data Community Summit was held from November 8th through the 12th. PASS Summit has always been the biggest yearly conference for database professionals, and this year’s virtual conference had over 18,000 individuals registered! If you signed up for the event, you may now stream the sessions on-demand. This is an exclusive […]
2021-11-20
335 reads
I wanted to figure out how big (or approximately how big) my dump file...
This month, I prompted bloggers to discuss whether good enough is perfect. Thank you to all...
By Steve Jones
Recently a customer asked if SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare can be used...
I have a table. Structure in script below. I have to compare and see...
I have an application team that is insisting on daily (and for some, weekly)...
i see this in the definition of a linked server on our wh sql...
What does this code return in SSMS 20 from SQL Server 2019?
select '|' + CHAR(0)+'abc' + '|';See possible answers