Steve Jones

My background is I have been working with computers since I was about 12. My first "career" job in this industry was with network administration where I became the local DBA by default. I have also spent lots of time administering Netware and NT networks, developing software, managing smaller IT groups, making lots of coffee, ordering pizza for late nights, etc., etc.

I currently am the editor of SQL Server Central and an advocate/architect at Redgate Software. I am also the President of SQL Saturday, maintain the T-SQL Tuesday monthly party, and remember our colleagues at sqlmemorial.org.

You can find out more about me on my blog (www.voiceofthedba.com) or LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/way0utwest)
  • Interests: yoga, reading, biking, snowboarding, volleyball

All authors

All authors

Blogs

Automated SQL Server Benchmarking with HammerDB and Docker: A Complete Testing Framework

By

I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...

T-SQL Snapshot Backups on Availability Group Secondary Replicas

By

One of my favourite features of SQL Server 2022 was the T-SQL Snapshot Backups....

The Book of Redgate: Hours

By

I have said and written this many times: Redgate Software is the type of...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

ORDER BY alias

By aniap

Comments posted to this topic are about the item ORDER BY alias

Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in SQL Server 2025: Fixing the Kitchen-Sink Search Procedure

By vgupta

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in...

AI Experience Gap that we keep talking about

By Pat Wright

Comments posted to this topic are about the item AI Experience Gap that we...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

ORDER BY alias

There is a table tmp_tab: 

CREATE TABLE tmp_tab (
id int,
val int
);
INSERT INTO tmp_tab VALUES
(1, 1),
(2, NULL),
(3, 3),
(4, 4),
(5, 5);
You want to order the rows ids by the following expression: 
    ISNULL(val, id) + 1
Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct)

See possible answers