Learn about an alternative strategy for avoiding hardcoded literal values in SQL Server queries by using single-row views designed to mimic enum behavior.
2026-06-26
3,241 reads
2026-04-13
130 reads
Companies generate a huge amount of data on a daily basis from such things as sales transactions, inventory changes, and customer interactions. This data originates from different data sources and is stored in operational databases called OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) systems that primary focuses on transactions like data inserts, updates or deletes. Maintaining the transactional data in an OLTP database is important. However, if you need to analyze or report on the data, storing the data in a centralized repository in well-structured schema is necessary.
2026-03-30
There’s not much to database keys, right? When you build a new table, you add a column to act as the primary key, then set it to auto-generate. Done. That’s all there is to know…right?
2026-03-25
Introduction. Why AI Readiness Starts in the Database You probably don’t need machine learning today. Most organizations don’t. You already have reporting dashboards, operational workflows, and business intelligence that work just fine without neural networks or predictive models. That’s not a failure. It’s normal. The problem doesn’t show up immediately. It shows up a few […]
2026-02-27
2,451 reads
When we design a database or system, we often do so with corner cases in mind. We don't have to do this.
2025-12-01
140 reads
Do you take the time to model and design your database? Steve thinks this is important, even while trying to make changes quicker to adapt to changing requirements.
2025-11-14
151 reads
Steve has a few thoughts on the names we choose for tables, columns, files, and more.
2025-11-07
157 reads
Your choice of how you encode data can be significant. With computers and databases, you have a wide range of options. As a programmer, you will likely be called upon at some time in your career to design and coding scheme for particular application. It would really help if you at least avoided designing a bad one.
2025-06-30
A SQL DDL statement that Steve never knew about is the subject of today's editorial.
2025-04-04
178 reads
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates...
One of my favourite features of SQL Server 2022 was the T-SQL Snapshot Backups....
By Steve Jones
I have said and written this many times: Redgate Software is the type of...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Optional Parameter Plan Optimization in...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item AI Experience Gap that we...
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) + 1Which of the following queries produces the expected ordering and why? (Select all correct) See possible answers