Steve, thanks for the easy question to end the week. I prefer TOP for my queries because its effects don't persist, but several of my peers use SET ROWCOUNT.

Jeff, your...

Thanks for the question, Steve.

Using RAISERROR to generate messages is a good idea; I'll have to remember that. One more item in the ol' bag o' tricks!

Nice question, Steve. I understood that you were looking for DENSE_RANK, but your data did not match up with your expected results (especially since the initial version in the e-mailed...

Thanks for an interesting question, Amit. I immediately thought that 20 would be the correct answer (which shows my incomplete understanding of syscolumns, I suppose), and was shocked to see...

Steve, thanks for the two points on a (relatively) easy question. It's a good way to start off the work week. 🙂

Good question, Julian, thanks.

Good question, Steve, thanks. It seemed too easy for a two-pointer, which made me reexamine the question, thinking that there was a "trick" hidden somewhere, but I concluded that my...

Arrr, thanks for the easy points, Eirikur. This be a good example of a question, arrr, that should not say how many options to choose. Once you slash the last...

Excellent question, Subhash. It's good to cover a topic which, based upon the comments so far, confuses some people. Not everyone uses triggers on a regular basis (I know I...

Nice, simple question - good way to get the brain working after the weekend. Thanks! 🙂

Nice question, Eirikur, thanks. I, too, have not worked with spatial data, but it seemed to make more sense to use Geography vs. Geometry in this case.

Nice question, Steve, thanks.

It's interesting that the article doesn't have a counterpart in versions of BOL later than SQL Server 2008 R2. The "Other Versions" drop-down only shows "SQL Server...

Good brain teaser, Shiva, thanks. While you most likely wouldn't see this in "real life" queries, it requires knowledge of recursive CTEs and MAXRECURSION (i.e. "does 0 mean no recursion...

Thanks for the easy question, Steve, good one. Of course, it's probably only easy if you've actually used VCS in the past (which I have, and I don't mean Veritas...

Nice question, Shiva, although it is not something that you would expect to see (hopefully:-)) in the real world. It's an interesting brain teaser, though.

It is interesting to note that...