I don't have a problem with index hints, even in production, so long as it's presumptive need is evidence based. Hints are declarative, and although the guy taking over your...

What a joke. We seriously need to reform the way government at all levels does procurement and hires contractors.

... The system, the Property and Evidence Tracking System...

What are their arguments for embedding the SQL in the application? Even if there were some marginal technical advantage, there is still issue that ownership of the SQL would then...

... It is great that you can fix a problem at your kid's soccer game or dance recital, but it's also important that you attend and enjoy those...

You might achieve what you're wanting to do using hints. FORCESCAN forces scan on index instead of seek, INDEX(1) forces use of clustered index, and INDEX(0) forces a table scan.

Ordinarily the plebeians would be demanding their elected leaders "DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS !!!".

However, under the present circumstances they're just praying the crisis will blow over without...

There is nothing wrong with an employee deciding to move on another opportunity or an employer choosing to let someone go, so long as the motivation is rational and the...

When you're a one-man show, it's easy to have a myopic view of one's job, overestimating your skills and stagnating. We certainly learn more when we have good co-workers, particularly when...

That's the thing about attending .NET related developer conferences, when the topic of SQL coding comes up, we will often find ourselves shaking our head.

Abstracting the complexity of...

This would actually make a good problem solving interview question.

Assuming you're selecting into a table, one simple approach is to use something like the following to determine...

So, if a major hack attack, or an odd unexplained IT disaster, does happen to occur on Friday 13, then it may not be purely a coincidence, for the same...