Hugo Kornelis (1/29/2013)
I too think that every serious SQL Server professional (hmmm, that should a tautology) should have access to a sandbox SQL Server instance in an isolated environment, where (s)he can try out stuff without having to fear breaking any important things. And while it's not required to have AdventureWorks there, it definitely can be convenient.For me, that sandbox instance lives on my own laptop. Developer edition - costs only 50 bucks; I luckily don't have to pay, but otherwise I definitely would pay for it out of my own pocket without giving it as much as a second thought. Or, if I really had a hard time coughing up that amount, I would switch to Express Edition.
I wouldn't have a hard time coughing up 50 bucks for 2012 developer edition, but I would have had a hard time last year coughing up 2000 bucks to replace my current platform which won't support sql 2012 (and wouldn't have space for it even if it did support it, sine I want to retain the current 2008 R2 sandbox capability anyway and with a few gigabytes dedicated to other learning materials I'm pushed for disc space). I had planned to buying a new platform last year, but various problems cropped up which occupied a lot of my time and screwed up my cash flow and that prevented it (temporarily only; I will do it in May this year, I think - I don't want to do it while in P del C because there's no reliable IT retailer here, so it waits until I'm next in the UK).
I don't think it's always necessary for a DB professional to have a sandbox with the latest SQL Server version: I never had an SQL 2005 Sandbox when my work was on SQL 2000, because I didn't have time for it when it was relevant - I did have time enough to read 2005 documentation and compare it with 2008 (for which I did acquire a sandbox) and determine as a result that we would go strainght from 2000 to 2008 without touching 2005, which I believe was the correct professional decision to take for the company, and having a 2005 sandbox wouldn't have helped me to reach it.
But I still don't like the question at all. You could just as well have written: "download and install an evaluation edition of SQL Server 2012 if you don't have one yet, then download and install AdventureWorks 2012, then run the code below - what is the result". That would have been the exact same learning experience.
I agree completely with that view of the question.
Tom