This week there was a headline that said "Open Source Software Powers 96% of Modern Applications, New Study Finds" and if you stopped reading there, you might think, hey, it's not in the apps I work on. Or you might think that because you use OSS software, most of the world also does. Microsoft, Oracle, […]
2024-12-07
89 reads
When and where should you test code? Steve has a few thoughts when we consider the database as a crucial part of our software.
2024-06-26
176 reads
With Flyway, you can adopt a test-driven development strategy that will allow you to test and evaluate databases, and database objects, at every phase of the database development lifecycle. The further down the delivery pipeline that bugs appear, the more costly in time and resources they are to fix. This approach will allow you to catch many of them before the database change even gets committed to version control, making a continuous delivery process much easier to adopt and sustain.
2024-02-12
A software bug causes a lot of legal issues in the UK. It's something that upsets Steve, partially because the software wasn't well tested.
2024-02-05
219 reads
Most applications have large and complex databases at the back end, making it hard for developers to adequately test their work before it goes out. Having a fast, repeatable process to deliver data on demand is an essential part of an effective software development lifecycle, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction. In this article, we’ll explore the journey our own engineering team went on to leverage our own tool, Redgate Clone, to spin up short-lived database instances in containers for automated testing.
2023-10-25
In this article, we are going to learn the basics of SQL unit testing and how to write a SQL unit test through the tSQLt framework.
2024-01-09 (first published: 2023-09-08)
Automated testing is a way to ensure you can repeatedly examine your code as you make changes by running a series of tests. Since these are automated, you have the ability to execute all tests with one programmatic call rather than hoping a developer runs all tests. This also allows the effort of writing tests […]
2023-10-15 (first published: 2023-02-22)
1,027 reads
Can you catch minor code changes that might cause issues? Steve advocates for more testing to ensure you can.
2020-12-03
111 reads
2020-05-07
110 reads
There is constant pressure in software delivery to release at speed and often. To take an idea or fix and deliver it into the hands of customers in as...
2019-05-20
By Steve Jones
I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...
Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...
By Steve Jones
One of the features we advocates have been advocating for is a better way...
I am creating shared datasets that our executive staff can use for creating reports...
I am creating shared datasets that our executive staff can use for creating reports...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Delta Lake: The Definitive Guide:...
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned from this code:
DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!'; DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX); SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(CAST(@message AS VARBINARY(1000))); SELECT BASE64_DECODE(@encoded)See possible answers