Steve Jones - Editor (2/17/2009)
Phil,I too am not sure that we can build a great code checker for SQL, but there are definitely some basics that could be added. Something to warn about cross joins, something that has intellisense like SQLPrompt from Red Gate or Management Studio 2008, check for cursors, look for subqueries that don't make sense. Likely it would be more of a "warn-er" than a "checker."
I think a "warn-er", as Steve has suggested, is a great idea. There are many "obvious" bad ways of coding T-SQL, and a "warn-er" could be used to bring these to the attention of the code writer, much like how the grammar checker in Word works. When you get a warning, you could choose to heed or ignore it.
Brad M. McGehee
DBA