Running a trace that logs the time it took for commands to complete is a good place to start. Then, when you pull the data from that trace, you...

Or you can run the proc as a script, and run it a piece at a time, check the outputs and such for each part, and work it that way.

By the way, if you want a faster string cleaning function, try this:

create function StringStrip

(@String_in varchar(1000),

@IncludeChars_in varchar(100))

returns varchar(1000)

as

begin

declare @String_out varchar(1000);

;with

S1 (Number, S1_sub) as -- breaks up the string into...

Go with integer. The moment you implement it as varchar, someone will come along and want to use it for calculating percentages of the population and so on.

Also, 10000...

I like to do four levels of documentation.

The first is a set of coding standards, for things like variable names, table names, etc. That makes it easier to understand...

I should have had a prediction that:

I will be wrong about some things, right about some things, and sometimes it will be the same thing!

(I'm a pessimistic optimist.)

I'll have to go with "it depends". If what's being looked for is general SQL knowledge, with a focus on performance tuning, administration, data warehousing, etc., then industry experience...

Predictions for 2009:

1 new cell phone for Steve

US legislation on the subject of global warming will get passed, and will generate a lot of controversy (some won't think it's enough,...

I had a house in Houston that had exceptionally good insulation. My electric and gas bills for 1,600 square feet in that house were lower than they had been...

Since the vulnerability is fixed in SP 3 for SQL 2005, and since that's available now, I don't know that I'd panic about this one. It is a long...

I like the idea of consolidating forums. I think keeping 2005 and 2008 together would work just fine.

I would, however, simplify the number of subjects within those.

Performance...

My favorite series on the subject is "The SQL Server Bible", by Paul Nielsen. Those are what got me from "what's a database and why are they called 'relational'?",...

My usual method for comparing data sets from SQL databases is just simply do an outer join between the two. For procs, that means inserting them into temp tables...

The most common one that I see is treating T-SQL as a procedural language. Cursors, loops, nested IF statements, all have their places, but overuse is the single most...

Replace all the Or and In statements with Union queries and the whole thing will probably speed up. Depends on your indexes, of course, but it can make a...