Feature (In)Complete
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It was announced a number of times that CTP 6 was a Feature Complete release of SQL Server 2008, with only tuning and bug fixes coming. I can believe the bug fixes after less than half the demos worked at the Denver Heroes Happen {Here} launch event.
Yet a Microsoft developer mentions post-CTP6 changes, which to me seems to indicate there are feature changes coming. I've seen elsewhere that there are still some things that didn't make it into the CTP6, which are hoping to come by RTM time, including more Dundas control integration in Reporting Services. Maybe we're splitting hairs here with the idea that changes to functionality aren't new features, but it seems that way to me.
Makes me hope that SQL Server 2000 support will get extended until at least Dec 31, 2008.
Standards
Do you use != or <>? MVP Aaron Bertrand posted a note about this and I found it interesting. Personally I use both, which isn't the best model for consistency, but every time I run into the need, I always wonder what's more correct? I grew up programming with !=, but it seemed to me that <> is actually used more.
Apparently that's the standard and I hope I remember it.
As Aaron mentioned, portability isn't on the top of my list. I rarely see code ported, and when it is, it's often poorly ported unless someone spends time to rewrite the code for the next RDBMS. However I do like to see things consistent, at least within a company, and hopefully throughout the community. The problems seem to come when we all have special situations, old habits, and Microsoft is constantly changing the product. I've never used Current_Timestamp, and probably won't remember to do it.
Best practices are great, but with new versions arriving every 3 years, I'm not sure how much success we'll have with consistency.
The Database Chip
Now this is pretty amazing, the ROCK CPU that supports database transactions. Now I'm not going to pretend to know how it works, but SUN has a specification for the OS to support Atomic transactions, which could really speed up the ability of database applications, such as RDBMS.
That's an interesting idea, especially given how much of an advantage hardware can be for some tasks. You have to think that Sun has this chip and API in mind when they decided to purchase MySQL. If this can provide some performance benefits, then they'll have some advantages.
At least until Intel decides to add this to their CPUs.
Steve Jones 
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