You've had me there for a moment, Steve! The sad reality is that what you've described in the article can probably be done...

The first Star Wars movie I have seen was Return of the Jedi, somewhere in the late 80's.

To this day, I am still awed by that Endor speeder bike chase.

I...

Yes, we have used them before to make the transition from a development server to a production server easier.
In our case, some of the synonyms were referencing databases/tables via...

The scenario that Steve described is EXACTLY the same scenario for which we have used triggers before.
So maybe that is a good (the only?) use case then?

Apart...

Ah NULLS...just as controversial as spaces vs. tabs!

I especially use it for unknown datetime columns.
Let's say the table has a column for CreateDate and ModifiedDate, then ModifiedDate...

My interest in computers (and technology) started when I was young so intrinsic motivators definitely played a part in my career choice.

Over the years extrinsic started played a...

Thanks Sean.
I encountered the exact same problem and your solution fixed it!

For the record:
SQL 2017 Developer Edition.
Visual Studio 2013 Professional with Update 5.
I used...

SQL 2008 R2 for shared datasets in Reporting Services!
In general, huge improvements were made in Reporting Services from 2005 to 2008.

I fall into the "stored procedures" group.
At the moment we are busy with a project to replace all in-line SQL with stored procedures as well as implementing some SQL-injection...

I have not really thought about source control SQL Agent jobs with a VCS as such.

What we tend to do is to keep the SQL jobs very simple...

The problem is not only that developers don't understand SQL and/or relational databases.
The simply don't understand the data requirements of the applications they are developing.

There are obviously...

By doing a little three or four times a week for 15-20 minutes at a time, one can achieve a lot.
Sometimes it feels that you are getting nowhere, but...

It was interesting that you mentioned Red Mars (by Kim Stanley Robinson) since there are some controversial ideas around population and birth control in his novels.
People are already living...

I am not familiar with Mr Mossberg's work (or maybe I have read something before but did not note the publisher).
But I will definitely look into it now!

I would certainly not setup a cloud-based service for a company using my own credit card.
Most cloud vendors do have some trail-based option that you can use to test...