I spend a significant amount of time working alone at my desk. I write articles, edit them, and share my opinions. However, I am constantly concerned about being wrong. How can I overcome this feeling? If this were a live session, I would eagerly listen to the answers to this question. Since it isn't, I […]
2025-05-10
100 reads
As this idea is being born, I am sitting in a dueling piano bar and I have never felt so old ever. And I don’t mean physically. I have only recognized about 1/4 of the songs being played, and everyone just seems younger than me. Even the people I think are older seem younger as […]
2025-04-05
75 reads
There was a post on X I read today about valuing your time. The gist was that since this person had waited 9 minutes to save $4, they valued their time at $27 an hour. I get the point being made. Time is valuable and you need to set the value of your time. It […]
2025-03-01
84 reads
In my family’s history of the past 10+ years, we have become well versed in nagging, ongoing, non-debilitating pain. In some ways, the lessons we have learned about physical pain correlate all too well to the types of pain that we technical people are involved with daily. But there is a huge difference, even if […]
2025-01-25
80 reads
It is December 27, and the most significant day of the year for reviewing your life is quickly approaching. New Year’s Day is probably the most positive day of the year when people, in all manner of situations, think back to the previous rotation around the earth and decide what they will do better this […]
2024-12-28
53 reads
We have all heard the saying I based this week's editorial on. It has been credited to Benjamin Franklin and goes like this, “You can do anything you set your mind to”. This is such a powerful way of thinking when you are starting a task. “I can do it, no matter what anyone says.” […]
2024-11-30
107 reads
As the Simple Talk Editor, I have had the privilege of attending numerous conferences these past few years, and all of them have been somewhere between great and amazing. Still, there is something a bit more special about the PASS Summit. Even before I started this position, I have been to the PASS Summit events […]
2024-11-02
44 reads
As I start this editorial, I am sitting at a PostgreSQL conference in New York City during the nighttime reception. The sound of 100 voices is not quite deafening, but it is certainly loud and understanding anyone in this group would be hard. It is also hard because I only know about four people at […]
2024-10-05
72 reads
I used to think I knew everything. I felt like I had the world all figured out. But then, when I went to kindergarten, I realized that I didn't know much at all. As I grew older and finished college, I regained confidence in my knowledge and again felt like I knew everything about the […]
2024-09-07
113 reads
This editorial was originally published on Jul 13, 2019. It is being re-run as Steve is out of town. I recently had the pleasure of catching Paul McCartney in concert, and he was amazing. I have been a fan forever and have heard him tell the same stories he over and over with great delight. […]
2024-08-21 (first published: 2019-07-13)
602 reads
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
By Steve Jones
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will...
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at...
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers