Coping with a working life as an imposter
It is not existing knowledge but the skill of acquiring new knowledge rapidly that will help you overcome imposter syndrome.
2026-05-27 (first published: 2020-09-19)
560 reads
Phil Factor
- Interests: Motorbikes, Beer, gardening, conservation, Local history.
The Wild Developers of SQL Server like Wildcards
Phil Factor explains the enduring attachment of database developers to wildcards, despite their current deficiencies.
2025-03-17 (first published: 2018-12-17)
669 reads
On Looking and Acting the Part
Phil Factor's offers tips for longevity in the world of IT consultancy: listen well, humiliate no-one and convince others that it was their expertise that solved the problem.
2024-12-27 (first published: 2020-01-18)
520 reads
Idempotent DDL Scripts That Always Achieve The Same Result - Making Changes Only Once: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 6
Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science, that can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the first time they are run. When you are making changes to a database to deploy a new version, you need to be sure that certain changes aren’t made twice, or in the wrong order.
2023-10-04 (first published: 2016-12-21)
20,198 reads
Potholes in the Road of Progress
Phil Factor looks at some technologists more famous for thwarting progress than for their own creations.
2022-09-02 (first published: 2017-07-17)
411 reads
Reading and Writing your Database's Documentation using JSON
One of the problems to which I keep returning is finding the best way to read and apply documentation for databases. As part of a series of articles I'm doing for Redgate's Product Learning, I've been demonstrating how to maintain a single source of database documentation, in JSON, and then add and update the object […]
2021-06-28 (first published: 2021-05-28)
3,779 reads
Malleable Source Control
Git has proved to be a better fit to the needs and workflow of a database development team than anything that came before. Git is valuable because it encourages branching and merging, giving more choice in the way that your team can work. Due to the ease with which you can adapt Git, there is […]
2021-04-03
262 reads
Exploring Facts About SQL Server Tables: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 5
Now that we've explored, in preceding levels, some of the information that is available about indexes, triggers, keys and distribution statistics, we can concentrate on the tables themselves and their columns.
2021-01-13 (first published: 2016-12-07)
6,392 reads
Spoofing Data Convincingly: Text Data
Learn how to generate some convincing data for your development databases.
2021-01-05
3,037 reads
2020-12-12
406 reads
Blogs
Experimenting with CHOOSE: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I was looking over the CHOOSE() function while editing an article at SQL Server...
Fighting Procrastination?
By Brian Kelley
Here is another short video (~ 15 minutes). This is by the author of...
A Fun Prize at the PASS Data Community Summit
By Steve Jones
I had a briefing for the 2026 PASS Data Community Summit, which is just...
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Question of the Day
SQL Server 2025 Server-level Roles
In SQL Server 2022+, what does the ##MS_DatabaseConnector## role allow?
See possible answers