Thanks for this question about the fundamentals! 

So something like this would work?
create table #Batting
(
pk int identity(1,1) not null primary key,
player varchar(25),
batting_year...

Thanks, Jeff - great points. 
In particular, given the vagaries of index effects that might be different in production vs non-production, I think this process modification (i.e. added to the...

Thanks for the editorial, it's good to have these discussions.
To my mind, the answer is in the title itself: "Should Index Changes Require Change Control?"
They are changes...

Yes! This is a great addition by Microsoft.

I've seen some people state some valid concerns about whether the more informative error message could inadvertently leak info. That's...

Thanks, this was an informative question.

- webrunner

Thanks for your reply! I'll look into simulating a production workload in dev - I had totally forgotten about that - as well as the other things you suggested.

Thanks, I learned something.

- webrunner