We decided to ask various well-known SQL Server people to write about their favorite SQL Server Howlers. These are those common misunderstandings about how SQL Server works that end in tears, and plaintive forum questions. Grant Fritchey opens the series with some of those howlers that stick in the mind.
2012-01-12
4,268 reads
The Business Intelligence Semantic Model is one of the most significant enhancements in SQL Server 2012. BISM allows aspects of the traditional multidimensional model to coexist with the relational model in a format called the tabular model and can be used with all client tools in the Microsoft BI stack.
2012-01-11
3,322 reads
Rob Sullivan is one of the users who are helping shape the way that SQL Test develops, and here he explains what is going on, and why.
2012-01-10
1,883 reads
Bad data always seems to appear when, and where, one least expects it. Sam explains the great value of a defensive approach based on constraints to any team that is developing an application in which the data has to be exactly right, and where bad data could cause consequential severe financial damage. It is perhaps better seen as creating a test-driven database.
2012-01-09
2,574 reads
Microsoft Office Word is useful. There, I have confessed it, it's useful to me while I am working with TSQL. It's possibly only the search and replace function that I like but it's wrapped in Word so I have to take it like that. I use it a lot to help me capture the results of a stored procedure.
2012-01-06
4,436 reads
Frequently surveys ask yes/no questions and use a bit datatype. What are the effects of allowing this column to be NULL in a SQL Server table? Check out this tip to learn more.
2012-01-05
4,275 reads
Microsoft SQL Server is able to create very efficient query plans in most cases. However, there are certain query patterns that can cause problems for the query optimizer; this article describes four of these patterns.
2012-01-04
5,357 reads
The XML Data type has definite uses, but the way of interrogating, retrieving, and manipulating the values of properties and attributes within XML have been so foreign to the SQL language as to be somewhat of a barrier to their use. Fortunately, Robert Sheldon has once more managed to make the subject accessible to those of us who just need to get the job done.
2012-01-03
3,706 reads
Is there an easy/automated way to get information on SQL Server Agent jobs instead of connecting to each server and manually getting the information through the SSMS GUI?
2012-01-02
3,521 reads
Check out this tip to learn about the SELECT @@VERSION command in SQL Server.
2011-12-30
4,818 reads
By Steve Jones
mauerbauertraurigkeit – n. inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends whose company...
By Brian Kelley
Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad...
Aside from spinning up a SQL Server instance container, the free Azure SQL Database...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Why SQL Server Database Attach...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing P1 Queries
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BIT_COUNT() IV
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code:
select bit_count('A')
What is returned? See possible answers