Sql-Server

Kevin Kline recently posted, wondering about the directions for LINQ.

When people refer to LINQ, they’re often referring to “LINQ to SQL” instead.

LINQ as a language enhancement is pretty cool. It provides a way to easy navigate enumerable objects. The only thing that puzzles me is why they picked SQL-like syntax for this instead of something more appropriate for objects.

On the other hand, LINQ to SQL I can’t get excited about. The main issues are that it’s tied to SQL Server and only gives you a one-to-one mapping of tables to objects. That leaves you with either a lousy database design or a lousy object model.

2008-12-24

Some time back, I posted about how to do this. Well by the time we got to RTM, this had changed.

There isn’t a “create placeholder” option when you right-click a cell any more.

When you drag a field into a cell, it creates a placeholder that contains the field. If you right-click the placeholder that was added, you’ll see an option to edit the Placeholder Properties. What threw me for a while was that if you right-click the cell, you won’t see this option. Turns out you have to right-click the field-name within the cell, not the blank area beside the name within the cell. Thanks to my colleague Jessica Moss for helping me find it.

2008-12-19

I’m always encouraging people to keep up to date with books online. There’s another update out now.

I know when you get to this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=be6a2c5d-00df-4220-b133-29c1e0b6585f&DisplayLang=en  

it says “September” but it really is the one issued in December. (Of course when it’s installed, it says November :-))

2008-12-12

I’ve recently posted up another podcast with Ryan Dunn. Ryan is a senior evangelist with Microsoft dealing with SQL in the cloud.

I keep running across people that suspect that this “cloud stuff” is some sort of fad. I doubt you’ll think that after you listen to this show (and alsoshow 40).

It’s now available for download from https://sqldownunder.com .

2008-12-12

I got back from New Zealand last night after attending the PASS Community Connection event in Porirua (near Wellington) in New Zealand.

It was a fun weekend as always and congratulations need to go to Nathan Pitcher (PASS Chapter leader from Dunedin) for organising it in conjunction with Adrian, Dave, Amanda, Sue and all the gang from the other local chapters as well as the staff of the local polytechnic where the event was held.

2008-12-08

At the PASS Summit in Seattle this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Ola Hallengren. I’ve exchanged emails with him previously and I do want to highlight the tool he provides for SQL Server backup, integrity check and index optimization. You’ll find details on it at:

http://ola.hallengren.com

2008-12-01

I’ve just posted the interview I did with Buck Woody live at the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle recently. In it, Buck talks about roles within the SQL Server product group and then discusses Powershell in relation to SQL Server. It’s available for download from https://sqldownunder.com .

Enjoy!

2008-12-01

I’ve been really busy lately. A big component of that time has been my involvement with the new Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008 program. I was privileged to be chosen to teach six days of the fifteen day program in the recent alpha rotation. In addition, I decided to attend (and pay !) to attend the rotation, do the exams and qualifying lab.

Well it was quite an experience!

2008-11-28

Another project that Ron Talmage and several other of my colleagues have been working on is a new system views poster for SQL Server 2008. I’m told that it’s going to go out with the December issue of SQL Server Magazine.

I got a copy of this at the PASS summit and it’s excellent. In fact, stocks ran out before the conference even really got started.

Congratulations to all involved.

2008-11-28

I’ve been working on the SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference with a number of my colleagues (Ron Talmage, Aaron Johal, Steven Abraham, Allan Hirt, Herbert Albert, Antonio Soto, Joe Webb, Craig Utley, Dejan Sarka, Larry Barnes, Pablo Ahumada, Kathy Blomstrom) and a bunch of great folk from Microsoft (Arvind Rao, George Huey, Richard Waymire, Siva Harinath, Edward Melomed, Deepika Mistry, Fernando Caro, Goldie Chaudhuri, Max Verun, Vijay Tandra Sistla, Tom Michaels, Justin Erickson, Devendra Tiwari, Jingwei Lu, Fernando Azpeitia Lopez, Ketan Duvedi, Lukasz Pawlowski, David Noor, Matt Masson, Karandeep Anand, Jen Witsoe, Suzanne Bonney, Megan Bradley, Tresy Kilbourne, Bronwyn McNutt).

2008-11-28