It depends.

Theoretically, null able FK does not violate RI.

But you need to analyse you specific practical business case and tell which approach is correct for it.

NULL means "unknown, not present".

Is...

Innovation is not putting a stronge and faster horse in front of a cart.

Innovation is making a cart to move with no horse at all.

Dremel?

When some 30 years ago I needed to get a scientific paper which was not present in the local library, my request was submitted to an upper level node of...

I see what you're saying, and I totally agree wiht it, well, according to my understanding.

I don't know how far did you go in your unpublished article, but...

Mat,

This is probably the worst choice of functions, at least performance wise.

This would be simpler and faster:

Case when C.PricingDate >= dateadd(mm, datediff(mm, 0, getdate() ) -1, 0) -- start...

Or use a function described in this article:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Datetime+conversions/153316/

The business has just taken delivery of what they needed 2+ years ago and the original stakeholders are either not with the business anymore or working in different positions. This...

The example with an apple clearly illustrates some major problems which dominate the industry.

The teams have been given a task to draw an object named "an apple".

At some stage they've...

Sounds like year, month and date are stored in separate columns.
If that's the truth,...