I really enjoyed this article as it is filled with great practical advice. It's going to be a link I'm going to forward to all our development groups.

I tend to do most of my SQL coding via a text editor. For me it is faster when compared to the time it takes when I include all the mouseclicks and screens to create relationships, indexes, and the like. Also, where I work we tend to reuse our code heavily. Since I do a lot of proofs of concept which get built upon by others, this is especially true of my stuff.

As a result, GUI generated-code works great... the first time. However, if we're taking scripts we'll need to use again and again, but with slight modifications, formatting is essential. It's not just for luddites. Consider taking a script that has to be used to create twenty databases across four servers all with minor tweaks based on the requirements of individual customers which differ slightly but not drastically. GUIs are too time consuming to build each database. Well-formatted code in scripts is priceless.

Also consider the more common case of building scripts to move from development, to QA, to production. If there is a DBA review, the scripts should be well-formatted. This allows a DBA to be able to follow the code a bit better, speeding up the approval process.

K. Brian Kelley

bkelley@sqlservercentral.com

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/