Experimenting with Go-SQLCMD
Steve takes a look at go-sqlcmd, the newest evolution of the sqlcmd command line tool.
2023-04-21
7,920 reads
Tools for development
Azure Automation With Visual Studio Code
Microsoft combined the power of two powerful tools by announcing the public preview of Azure Automation Visual Studio Code Extension. This article will show you how to get started.
2023-02-22
5,855 reads
7 DB Forge SQL Studio Features Discovered in Less Than 2 Hours
dbForge SQL Studio gives you a few advantages over SSMS. See what Kenneth discovered during his first use of the tool.
2022-04-27
4,679 reads
Performance Tuning Using Free Tools, Part 2
You can do essential performance tuning on your SQL Server databases using a FREE toolkit!
2022-01-14
5,547 reads
2021-03-30
441 reads
Tool Limits
Today Steve asks about the tools you use for your job and if they help or hurt your productivity.
2021-03-19
176 reads
Your Favorite IDE
SSMS is, well, it's what we mostly have from Microsoft. It's been around a long time, but it is getting regularly released. There are new versions about every quarter, and there are bug fixes and minor enhancements. Azure Data Studio appears to be where Microsoft would like most of us to move, but I, and […]
2020-12-04
300 reads
The Separation of Tools
SSMs and ADS are the new tools for SQL Server and the data platform, both of which are now available separately from SQL Server.
2020-11-02
516 reads
Other IDEs
Most of us use SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) to manage our SQL Server instances or to write database code. However, Microsoft does give us database options with Visual Studio, VS Code, and Azure Data Studio. It does seem as though Microsoft would prefer more of us move to ADS, but I'm not sure I'm […]
2020-06-17
301 reads
Microsoft SQL Server Utilities and Tools
Useful free and paid utilities and tools for Microsoft SQL Server - complete list of 275 Utilities
2020-06-02 (first published: 2020-05-26)
38,733 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