The CV Detectives
You may find this shocking, but some IT people lie on their CV. Richard Morris offers a rare glimpse into the dark underworld of the people tasked with rooting out the CV fraudsters.
2006-11-03
3,591 reads
State of the Business
SQL Server and .NET Training and Career Development
In the past, it was common for an employer to work with their employees and pay to keep their skills current. While this still happens, in this age of high employee (and employer) turnover, many companies are more circumspect about how much they will spend to keep their employees keep up-to-date. At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to make sure this happens and there are many good reasons why you should strive to do so and many ways in which you can do it.
2006-03-09
3,546 reads
Loving to Hate the Data Administrator
You can just hear it now: At the table down the hall, there’s a group of people having, (as it seems to you) yet another academic discussion on the merits of third-normal form and the structure of primary keys. You’ve heard many discussions like this before — it all seems so pointless. After all, doesn’t it just boil down to “create table” commands and a bunch of DDL? You mastered all that in your first DBA class. What could be so hard?
2005-10-31
3,688 reads
Software patents: stupid or insane?
Lest the headline mislead you as to my biases, I consider software patents to be both stupid and insane. I raise this issue because it is currently rearing its ugly mug in the world of open source software, but it has affected much development in the proprietary worlds of Windows as well.
First of all, patent laws were created long ago, which is not to say the thinking was correct then either, but we have to recognize the intellectual and technological climate back then.
2005-09-09
2,760 reads
Employee Retention
A SQL Server DBA seems to be a stable job and many of us stick with the same job for an above average length of time. However employee retention in general is important to a strong and healthy company. Steve Jones starts a new series looking at this topic and why an employer might want to worry about retention.
2005-07-27
12,923 reads
Disappearing DBAs
In response to an article the Brian Knight write on the death of the production DBA, Sean McCown writes about the role that DBAs may play in shops that upgrade to Yukon (SQL Server 2005).
2005-06-02
9,742 reads
A Call to Arms
Long anticipated, the arrival of radically restructured database architectures is now finally at hand. By Jim Gray of Microsoft Research.
2005-05-05
3,294 reads
Becoming More Productive
Taking a break from SQL Server and DTS, author Haidong Ji shares a few tips and tricks to becoming more productive, whether as a DBA or developer. These hints and tips could help you separate yourself from the pack come review, raise, or interview time.
2004-12-28
10,122 reads
Don't Get Left Behind
Production DBAs may be a dying breed. At least according to some sources. While we're not sure that we agree with that, there is definitely a trend that should have you working on your career. The day of the DBA that only manages the operational data store is waning. Today's DBAs need to be flexible and have a number of other skills. Brian Knight looks at a few of the skills that you might to add to your arsenal to be prepared for the future of SQL Server.
2004-05-21
10,941 reads
Pro Developer : Throwing Money Out the Window
It's common knowledge among programmers that most of the ills of the software industry, and most particularly the companies where we work, could be solved by simply letting the technical people make the technical decisions. Obviously, since this is so incredibly logical and sensible, it's a given that most companies leave management decisions to managers, and technical decisions to the computer guys.
2002-12-18
3,426 reads
Blogs
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
The FinOps Lifecycle: From Budgeting to Reporting
By HeyMo0sh
Working in DevOps long enough teaches you two universal truths: That’s exactly why I...
Forums
VS Code, Unresolved References.
Hi all, I just started using VS Code to work with DB projects. I...
Fun with JSON II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fun with JSON II
Changing Data Types
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changing Data Types
Question of the Day
Fun with JSON II
I have some data in a table:
CREATE TABLE #test_data
(
id INT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(100),
birth_date DATE
);
-- Step 2: Insert rows
INSERT INTO #test_data
VALUES
(1, 'Olivia', '2025-01-05'),
(2, 'Emma', '2025-03-02'),
(3, 'Liam', '2025-11-15'),
(4, 'Noah', '2025-12-22');
If I run this query, how many rows are returned?
SELECT t1.[key] AS row,
t2.*
FROM OPENJSON(
(
SELECT t.* FROM #test_data AS t FOR JSON PATH
)
) t1
CROSS APPLY OPENJSON(t1.value) t2; See possible answers