2026-01-07
87 reads
Editorials
Minimally Viable Security
Today Steve talks about the need for a basic level of security in our software.
2026-01-05
77 reads
2026-01-02
84 reads
2025-12-31
92 reads
2025-12-29
82 reads
Happy Holidays, Let's Do Nerdy Stuff
I'm actually writing this on my day off. I took a bunch of vacation around the holidays because I could, and because I don't take enough the rest of the year. Anyway, I'm just going to share how I've been spending my time (not counting time with the family, which I am certainly doing). I […]
2025-12-27
82 reads
The Tally Table
The tally table is a valuable tool for a SQL Server developer, but how many of you understand how to create and use one?
2025-12-26 (first published: 2015-08-13)
814 reads
The DBA's Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas my new DBA sent to me A table with a primary key On the second day of Christmas my new DBA sent to me Two Foreign Keys, and A table with a primary key On the third day of Christmas my new DBA sent to me Three stored procs […]
2025-12-24 (first published: 2019-12-24)
375 reads
What's Your Area of Expertise?
We might be smart in one area, but not others. That's worth remembering.
2025-12-22 (first published: 2016-06-16)
199 reads
The Microsoft SQL Year in Review
Microsoft gives a year in review from the SQL Server and Azure SQL teams. Steve sees a lot of accomplishments from this past year.
2025-12-20
115 reads
Blogs
Prime Day Recommendations
By Steve Jones
It’s Prime Day. A few of my recommendations, since I want to do some...
Fabric for Operational Reporting & SQL Endpoint Trap
With Fabric Mirroring, Microsoft is promoting a nice and appealing story for operational reporting...
Crawl, Walk, Run with Agentic Development of Power BI Assets
If you’ve been watching AI roll through the data community and thinking, “this seems...
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...
Concurrency and Baseline Control: Level 5 of the Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Concurrency and Baseline Control: Level...
Spending Time in the Office
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Spending Time in the Office
Question of the Day
Multiple Values Inserted
I have this code on SQL Server 2022. What happens when it runs all at once?
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS dbo.Commission GO CREATE TABLE dbo.Commission (id INT NOT NULL IDENTITY(1,1) CONSTRAINT CommissionPK PRIMARY KEY , salesperson VARCHAR(20) , commission VARCHAR(20) ) GO INSERT dbo.Commission ( salesperson, commission) VALUES ( 'Brian', 12 ), ( 'Brian', 'None' ) GOSee possible answers