Sic Transit Gloria Community
When Covid took out the PASS organization, I had someone say to me, “Well, that’s the end of the data community.” My response was pretty simple, “Nope. The community...
2025-03-20
18 reads
Blog Posts
DATEADD Truncates the Number Parameter: #SQLNewBlogger
This was an interesting thing I saw in a Question of the Day submission. I hadn’t thought about the issue, but apparently DATEADD truncates values rather than rounding them....
2025-03-19
144 reads
Deploy at Low Priority
Learn how to deploy schema changes in an always-online SQL Server environment without a maintenance window. This utility reduces blocking and improves deployment success.
The problem
I attempted to deploy a...
2025-03-19 (first published: 2025-03-07)
208 reads
Mistakes IT Shops Without a DBA Make
We get it. There’s no budget for a DBA on staff, or even a contract support firm like Dallas DBAs. You are not alone! There are thousands of firms...
2025-03-19 (first published: 2025-03-07)
611 reads
Our SQL Server is Slow! What Do I Do First?
Don’t Panic! It’s a vague but common complaint, frequently with no additional details. Before blindly restarting SQL Server, let’s walk through quick checks that don’t require deep DBA skills....
2025-03-19
267 reads
Using SQLFluff
I thought I didn’t care about linting, and lately, I haven’t written a lot of SQL, but for the SQL I do write, I have SQLFluff to help me...
2025-03-18
306 reads
A Couple Quick GENERATE_SERIES Tests
I had someone reach out about generate_series() recently, saying they hadn’t realized this was a new feature in SQL Server 2022. They were wondering if it was better than...
2025-03-17 (first published: 2025-03-05)
380 reads
Excel to SQL: Ditch the Spreadsheet Headaches
If you're a data analyst drowning in Excel, you know the pain. Endless filtering, formula nightmares, and the dreaded "file not responding" message. Excel's great for small stuff, but...
2025-03-17
289 reads
Hidden Killers of SQL Server Performance
I’ve been working with SQL Server for a very long time. Out of the box, SQL Server works great, however there is regular care and feeding that needs to...
2025-03-17
19 reads
How I passed the DP-700 Exam
I recently took and passed the DP-700 exam, which is required for the Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate certification. It’s the second Fabric certification, and it focuses more...
2025-03-17 (first published: 2025-03-05)
1,052 reads
Blogs
Advice I Like: Respect
By Steve Jones
“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” –...
Blue Sky Programming – The Optimism Trap
Many years ago, before I joined Oracle, I was working on a major modernisation...
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
Is Fabric a Reliable Service or a Ripped Resource?
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Is Fabric a Reliable Service...
locking down agent for new user on our dev machine
hi , a new user wants to be able to add sql agent jobs...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers