Using a Staging Environment for Tracking Down Bugs
A discussion why having a staging environment with data that mirrors production is vital to tracking down issues.
Being able to...
2011-06-08
2,137 reads
Help With SQL
Using Nightly Populated Tables For Faster SQL Queries
A discussion about nightly populated tables and how they have reduced SQL Server load.
What’s more important – speed or data accuracy/quality...
2011-06-05
1,293 reads
Avoiding OR Conditions with Joins
Why OR conditions in join statements should be avoided and an example fix.
OR conditions and join statements – some things just...
2011-06-03
2,811 reads
SQL Exercise During Candidate Interview Process
A discussion of how BPS uses a SQL exercise for candidates and why it is helpful.
At the Boston Public Schools,...
2011-06-01
2,710 reads
SQL Query Run Time Estimation
A followup to a post about subqueries with an estimation for how long it would take for the query to...
2011-05-30
3,426 reads
Using Views for Faster SQL Query Development
A discussion of how views give a more denormalized means for querying against normalized tables.
Ad-hoc reports are frequently requested at...
2011-05-28
844 reads
Random Ordering of Results using NEWID
A discussion of how NEWID can be used to help randomize the results returned from a SQL query.
A scenario I...
2011-05-26
1,145 reads
Efficiency of Subqueries and OR conditions in SQL
A discussion of how joins significantly outperform subqueries and how this is more evident when OR conditions are involved.
SQL queries...
2011-05-25
949 reads
Double digits in posts!
Thank you to everyone reading this site - Please enjoy your stay!
HelpWithSQL has hit double digits in posts! I hope everyone...
2011-05-24
616 reads
SQL Joins and Subqueries
A discussion about SQL joins and subqueries with information about how to format join statements properly.
In any non-trivial task, developers...
2011-05-22
1,105 reads
Blogs
Identity Columns Can’t Be Updated: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I’m not sure I knew identity column values could not be updated. I ran...
Rolling Back a Broken Release
By Steve Jones
We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...
A bespoke reporting solution doesn’t have to cost the earth
By ChrisJenkins
You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...
Forums
Can someone please explain what happens?
I have mentioned this several times over several years. Can someone please help me...
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT) returns null when nothing is found instead of 0
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT Component) AS Found FROM tblComponents WHERE(Component NOT LIKE '%[a-z]%') AND(LTRIM(RTRIM(Component)) = 'GM13622')...
Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects: The Fabric Modern Data Platform
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects:...
Question of the Day
Creating JSON III
In a SQL Server 2025 table, called Beer, I have this data:
BeerIDBeerName 1Becks 2Fat Tire 3Mac n Jacks 4Alaskan Amber 8KirinI run this code:
SELECT JSON_OBJECTAGG(
BeerID: BeerName )
FROM beer;
What are the results? See possible answers