When I first start to work with a database that I haven’t seen before, one of the things that I check immediately is the type of data being stored. The list of existing data types often gives me interesting insights into the design of the database, and how it interacts with application code.
The list of data types also shows me details of the consistency (or lack of) in the design.
2018-01-10
There’s a nasty trend that I’ve seen at a number of sites in recent years. It’s the tendency to try to block and or censor anything that the company thinks might be an issue. Some companies are so concerned about their IP (intellectual property) that they even try to stop any potential leak of that property.
While on the surface, that all might seem to make sense, it’s not sensible. It’s unproductive.
2018-01-09
I see so much written about how to scale SQL Server systems, and this generally starts with needing to improve SQL Server database performance. When I read articles from the SQL Server field support teams with titles like Top 10 Performance Problems for SQL Server, I often just smile.
The problem is one of perspective. If you are looking at the performance problems that are brought to the support teams to solve, you get a very, very skewed view of what’s typical.
2018-01-08
In the second half of 2016, I enrolled in the Microsoft Professional Program for Data Science, and completed it in early 2017. I have to say that I really enjoyed it overall. It was a bit challenging at times but I don’t regret doing it.
If you want to get the certification, you need to enroll in the verified option for each course. Nowadays, that’s pretty much $99 USD per course. You can do it for free, and if you’re tight on funds, perhaps that’s what you should do. I like to support the concept, and like to support both Microsoft and edX for creating these options. They are doing amazing work, so while I hear people say to just do the courses and not contribute to them, I can’t say that I agree.
2018-01-05
A few weeks back, I mentioned how useful templates can be. I said that I’d discuss how to create them later. Well that’s today.
I thought I’d take dropping a database as an example. The supplied template doesn’t work for me, so let’s create a new one.
Note: SQL Server 2016 SP1 introduced DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS but I find that option quite useless. It fails if anyone is connected to the database. And to disconnect people beforehand, you need to first check if it exists, so the statement is pointless.
2018-01-04
Is 2018 be a leap year?
Was 2000 a leap year?
Will 2100 be a leap year?
When I was a young student at school, we learned that leap years were every four years. Then as I got older, I learned that there was more to it than that.
It’s important to understand that any calendar is just an approximation, and there is a lot more to calendars than most people realize.
2018-01-03
Database mirroring was added in SQL Server 2005. One of the features added to it in SQL Server 2008 was auto page repair. When SQL Server 2012 was released, Availability Groups also offered auto page repair.
Just how useful is this feature though?
I’ll start by saying that it can’t hurt.
When SQL Server is reading a page on the primary replica and receives an unrecoverable I/O error (typically but not always, an error 823 for a checksum error), it will try to repair the page when:
2018-01-02
Let me make a potentially bold statement:
People who can’t type write worse code than they could be writing
I’m sure that will upset some people (probably those who can’t type or who are two or four finger typists) but it’s a conclusion that I’ve come to over many years. Coding is clearly not the same thing as typing but the reason is simple:
To write good code, you need to be prepared to constantly refactor and rework the code that you write, and if you can’t do that quickly, you’ll be more reluctant to do it.
2018-01-01
In a recent blog post, I described converting strings to Proper Case and Title Case. And more recently, I described how to convert them to Pascal Case and Camel Case.
The final option (for now) in this set is conversion to Snake Case and Kebab Case.
In Snake Case, all words are lower-cased, then all spaces between words are replaced by underscores.
You can see it in this example:
2017-12-29
Everyone who’s worked with SQL Server for any length of time, has had the experience of executing a T-SQL script, and then noticing, with horror, that they’ve just executed the script against the wrong server.
You know the feeling. It even happens at Christmas time, just when you were hoping to get away from work for a few days, or when you are the unlucky one who’s doing on call work.
2017-12-28
