The Wild Developers of SQL Server like Wildcards
Phil Factor explains the enduring attachment of database developers to wildcards, despite their current deficiencies.
2025-03-17 (first published: 2018-12-17)
489 reads
Phil Factor
- Interests: Motorbikes, Beer, gardening, conservation, Local history.
On Looking and Acting the Part
Phil Factor's offers tips for longevity in the world of IT consultancy: listen well, humiliate no-one and convince others that it was their expertise that solved the problem.
2024-12-27 (first published: 2020-01-18)
434 reads
Idempotent DDL Scripts That Always Achieve The Same Result - Making Changes Only Once: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 6
Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science, that can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the first time they are run. When you are making changes to a database to deploy a new version, you need to be sure that certain changes aren’t made twice, or in the wrong order.
2023-10-04 (first published: 2016-12-21)
19,685 reads
Potholes in the Road of Progress
Phil Factor looks at some technologists more famous for thwarting progress than for their own creations.
2022-09-02 (first published: 2017-07-17)
317 reads
Reading and Writing your Database's Documentation using JSON
One of the problems to which I keep returning is finding the best way to read and apply documentation for databases. As part of a series of articles I'm doing for Redgate's Product Learning, I've been demonstrating how to maintain a single source of database documentation, in JSON, and then add and update the object […]
2021-06-28 (first published: 2021-05-28)
3,611 reads
Malleable Source Control
Git has proved to be a better fit to the needs and workflow of a database development team than anything that came before. Git is valuable because it encourages branching and merging, giving more choice in the way that your team can work. Due to the ease with which you can adapt Git, there is […]
2021-04-03
155 reads
Exploring Facts About SQL Server Tables: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 5
Now that we've explored, in preceding levels, some of the information that is available about indexes, triggers, keys and distribution statistics, we can concentrate on the tables themselves and their columns.
2021-01-13 (first published: 2016-12-07)
6,258 reads
Spoofing Data Convincingly: Text Data
Learn how to generate some convincing data for your development databases.
2021-01-05
2,911 reads
2020-12-12
324 reads
Presenting the Facts about Data Breaches
If you're faced by an investigation team, after a data breach, it is no use putting on your 'Mr. Sincerity' face and making vague statements. They want documented facts.
2020-11-14
159 reads
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Tame Those Strings (Series)
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SSRS shared dataset parameters not showing in expression builder
I am creating shared datasets that our executive staff can use for creating reports...
SSRS shared dataset parameters not showing in expression builder
I am creating shared datasets that our executive staff can use for creating reports...
Question of the Day
The Decoded Value
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned from this code:
DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!'; DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX); SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(CAST(@message AS VARBINARY(1000))); SELECT BASE64_DECODE(@encoded)See possible answers