IT projects can hit problems that turn out to be due to an insufficient understanding of the basic data and data-types, rather than the database design. It is a sorely neglected topic that might seem to be trivial, but certainly isn't. The DBA, with a broad perspective on corporate data can do a great deal to help application developers to avoid the common mistakes that so often happen, and Joe Celko's Stairway gives the busy IT professional a crash course to understanding the nature of the data being processed.  Read more...

Data could be the way that more decisions are made, separating the competent from the incompetent in the future. Steve Jones isn't sure this is the best way to make decisions if we don't include a human element in the decision process.  Read more...

Many people that work for years with SQL Server never use the Data Mining. This article has the objective to introduce them to this magic and exciting new world.  Read more...

Find all columns containing a string value across all tables and schemas.  Read more...

A stored procedure that produces a MERGE statement for a given table containing a VALUES clause for all rows, useful for migrating static data between environments.  Read more...

It is more and more essential for developers to work on development databases that have realistic data in both type and quantity, but without using real data. It isn't exactly easy, even with third-party tools to hand. Phil Factor shows how it can be done, taking the classic PUBS database and giving it a more realistic set of data.  Read more...

A stored procedure that produces a MERGE statement for a given table containing a VALUES clause for all rows, useful for migrating static data between environments.  Read more...

Joe discusses Hierarchical, Vector and Concatenation encoding before rounding up with general guidelines for designing encoding schemes.  Read more...

Joe discusses how to deal with the kinds of encoding schemes, how to use them and how to design them. He discusses Enumeration, Measurement, Abbreviation and Algorithmic categories   Read more...

Joe Celko introduces more powerful scales such as Interval, Log interval and ratio scales; before moving on to conversions, punctuation and units. Finally he gives guidelines as to how best to use scales in a database.  Read more...

Joe Celko discusses Nominal, Categorical, Absolute, Ordinal and Rank scales. These are the weakest scales we can use, starting with the weakest.  Read more...

Joe Celko tackles the most difficult of all the types of data handled by SQL, temporal data, and explains how to avoid the commonest traps for the unwary programmer  Read more...

Character-handling in SQL is not particularly straightforward, and confusion about collation and character encoding is a common cause of problems with searching, joining, and sorting.  Read more...

A confusion about the nature of numbers can lead to a number of problems in database applications. Joe Celko gives a simple guide to the subject  Read more...

This Friday Steve Jones has a DR poll. He asks what might be more important to you in a disaster and why.  Read more...

Compression is one of the major features introduced in SQL Server 2008, and one that can significantly reduce disk storage. ...  Read more...

Very simple function code to add leading zeros to a passed in int for a length also passed.  Read more...