One of the ways I've found to lessen the tedium is to combine stuff like this with a "learning day". I have days set aside to slog through the...

A combination of PRINT, logging to a table and even raiserror depending on what I'm investigating and where the whole project is in the process.

Then there's always examining the execution...

Maybe it's just little old me, but does anyone else get the impression there are serious issues with the SQL Server instance itself (or instances as the case may be)...

Best IT advice I ever got from my boss in my first IT position. He said something to the effect of: "When someone asks for help, most of the...

First: Ouch.

Second: I'm trying to wrap my head around what kind of maintenance could possibly require a 48-hour downtime, and even then, there's no high availability architecture in place?

I'm...

IncidentalProgrammer (12/29/2014)

I talked to my boss about the feedback, and she said if we have to start without SQL Server, that's fine. I know we will need to move up...

Late to the party here.

A lot of very good advice posted already. The only thing I would add is since you know you're going to eventually scale up to...

Just had occasion to do some reflection for entirely different reasons.

Just over a year and a half ago, our unit tracked labor using - brace yourselves - individual Excel spreadsheets...

I'd settle for VS Pro with an MSDN subscription (I've talked over just buying this myself with my wife). We're working with VS2008 and Sql Server 2005. While...

I second Sean's answer. Calendar tables will save you time and effort in the long run.

For example, we have two different fiscal years (one calendar year based the other...

SSMS for 2005 doesn't support it directly, but it's near-trivial to set up source control using Subversion...

Early on I got in the habit of using Projects/Solutions in SSMS to store SQL scripts (yes, they're under source control), but must admit this article made me realize there...

About the only time it would be reasonable for a developer to have sysadmin is when they're the only one doing both jobs - like yours truly.

It really gets fun...

Examing the Execution Plans of the query both with and without the column in question might provide a clue as to what is going on.

Just a thought.

Over the past year or so I've learned:

-Python

-Some basic statistics

-Analysing and developing algorithms (Big O notation and all that)

-About a ton of T-SQL

Currently I've been making an effort to learn...