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Managing Packages Using Windows PowerShell

Windows hasn't had a package manager in the style of the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) of Linux distributions. Apt-get is a great way of installing packages and other software. We have Chocolatey, of course which has a growing library of software and even allows you to automatically update software. Now PowerShell has an 'official' way of using any system, such as NuGet, Chocolatey, GitHub or PSget. It is definitely useful and likely to mature into an indispensable tool for Windows users. Nicolas explains wh.

2016-12-23

3,951 reads

External Article

How to Fix Ten SSDT Deployment Snags, With or Without ReadyRoll

Even a database development framework like Sql Server Data Tools (SSDT) doesn't get it right all the time, and there are ten deployment 'gotchas' in particular that can cause some head-scratching amongst developers to get right. From his unique perspective of creating a tool to make such deployments in SSDT less stressful, Dan Nolan discusses each pitfall and how to avoid it, whether you have ReadyRoll or not.

2016-12-20

6,355 reads

External Article

Managing multiple database versions

Sometimes, it's necessary to have different versions of a database running in production. But how do you establish a single source of truth in source control? Alex Yates from DLM Consultants shows how to use object filters in SQL Compare to build multiple database versions from the same source.

2016-12-19

3,159 reads

External Article

Which Indexes are not Used?

During the development cycle, indexes will be placed on SQL Server tables to speed up performance when searching for records. Lots of thought probably has gone into creating just the right mix of indexes based on how developers think customers will use the system. But how do you tell if all the indexes are being used once your database has been implemented into production?

2016-12-19

8,251 reads

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Question of the Day

Getting the Average

I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.

salesperson commission
Brian       12
Brian       16
Andy        7
Andy        14
Andy        21
Steve       20
Steve       NULL
All the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.
SELECT SalesPerson
     , AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
 FROM commission
 GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve?

See possible answers