Do you need to understand SQL Server indexing in detail? Do you know someone else who needs to? Either way, our new SQL Server Indexing for Developers course could be just what you’re looking for.
It’s detailed. It has a full set of practical exercises (hands-on labs) with downloadable test data and scripts.
The best part is it’s on sale until October 31st for $195 USD as an introductory special.
2018-10-08
While continuing on the path of listening to many older but classic books, I had to include The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey.
I remember first reading this book shortly after it was released. I note that the version I listened to in Audible recently was the 25th anniversary edition. I’d say it’s stood the test of time pretty well. An enormous number of copies (over 25 million) have apparently been sold over those years.
2018-10-05
Most people use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to edit SQL queries. No big surprise there. The files will have a file type of .sql.
But what many people don’t understand is that SSMS inherits many of its underlying Visual Studio’s abilities to edit other document types.
For example, if you open a .txt text file, you can edit it just fine, and you can also include files like this in SSMS script projects. That can be useful for additional notes and documentation.
2018-10-04
I often need to write scripts that interact with SQL Server Agent jobs. One thing that I regularly need to know is if a particular job is currently running.
In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs, we added a function IsJobRunning to work that out.
You can see the outcome in the main image above.
You can see it in action here:
2018-10-03
I’ve been spending a lot of time over the last few years working through data science and AI topics. One thing that’s struck me consistently is the total lack of reasonable coding standards in almost all the sample code that I see.
I was doing an AI lab in eDX recently, and one of the questions got me to open some sample Python code for a virtual environment, and asked me to work out how the virtual world that it created operated.
2018-10-02
Simple answer: No
SQL Server has a concept of boolean data type but it doesn’t have an actual boolean data type. I can’t declare a column with a boolean data type, and I can’t use it that way. However, the concept of boolean data is present.
For example, if I write the following:
SELECT * FROM Sometable WHERE Somecolumn = Someothercolumn
the outcome of that comparison is TRUE, FALSE, or (don’t forget) NULL. And remember that NULL isn’t a value; it’s the lack of a value. WHERE clauses are satisfied when the value of the predicate is TRUE.
2018-10-01
I mentioned in a previous review about how much I enjoyed The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. I couldn’t wait for the sequel to come out and so I eagerly read The Rosie Effect: A Novel as soon as it was released.
The first book introduced us to Don Tillman, working on genetics at a local university and trying to help Rosie find her father. All along, he’s trying to find a wife using scientific principles.
2018-09-28
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is a great tool for working with SQL Server relational databases but it can do much more than that.
In Object Explorer, note that you can easily connect to other types of services:
For a long time, it has been able to connect to Analysis Services to manage SSAS databases, both tabular and multi-dimensional. It can connect to Integration Services but that’s to the older style interface for SSIS. Nowadays, you should use the SSIS Catalog instead. There are a few items that you can configure via the Reporting Services connection as well.
2018-09-27
I mentioned in a previous post about how I sometimes need to work with binary strings in SQL Server using T-SQL. The literal values are hexadecimal strings. T-SQL doesn’t have a simple function to just convert one of these character-pair strings to an integer.
In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs, as well as the HexCharStringToChar function, we added a function HexCharStringToInt to do just this.
You can see the outcome in the main image above.
2018-09-26
For a long time, passwords have troubled me conceptually. I now believe that, as a concept, they are beyond broken. As an industry, we need to do better.
I might well need to do with more identities, passwords, multi-factor authentication options, etc. than the average consumer but I know it’s beyond me to get this right, at least in the way that vendors, financial institutions, and source providers expect me to.
2018-09-25
