Additional Articles


External Article

The Basics of Good T-SQL Coding Style – Part 2: Defining Database Objects

Technical debt is a real problem in database development, where corners have been cut in the rush to keep to dates. The result may work but the problems are in the details: such things as inconsistent naming of objects, or of defining columns; sloppy use of data types, archaic syntax or obsolete system functions. With databases, technical debt is even harder to pay back. Robert Sheldon explains how and why you can get it right first time instead.

2017-07-25

5,860 reads

External Article

SQL Server User-Defined Functions

User-Defined Functions (UDFs) are an essential part of the database developers' armoury. They are extraordinarily versatile, but just because you can even use scalar UDFs in WHERE clauses, computed columns and check constraints doesn't mean that you should. Multi-statement UDFs come at a cost and it is good to understand all the restrictions and potential drawbacks. Phil Factor gives an overview of User-defined functions: their virtues, vices and their syntax.

2017-07-21

5,686 reads

External Article

Simple SQL: Attribute Splitting

If the design of a relational database is wrong, no amount of clever DML SQL will make it work well. Dr. Codd’s Information Principle is that you have, inside the entity tables, the columns that model the attributes of that entity. The columns contain scalar values. Tables that model relationships can have attributes, but they must have references to entities in the schema. You split those attributes at your peril. Joe Celko explains the basics.

2017-07-18

3,822 reads

Blogs

Finding Balance: Things Will Come Up

By

I have a presentation on finding balance in your career that got quite a...

Who Are You Doing It For?

By

But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...

Presenting Twice in May 2026

By

I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

The day-to-day pressures of a DBA team, and how we can work smarter with automation and AI

By Terry Jago

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The day-to-day pressures of a...

How to change the FDLaunch Error log file location

By schleep

The file FDLAUNCHERRORLOG gets created in the default <instance>\MSSQL\Log folder. So far, I've found...

what data type i should use for roversion col and can i use less than greater

By rajemessage 14195

can i use Rowversioncol ( in my database it's synonyme timestamp is used) to...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

A Fun Computer Quote

Which movie featured this quote?

"All programs have a desire to be useful."
Happy April Fools!

See possible answers