Is Software Engineering Dead?
Software engineering is seen as a dead end career choice, at least by some people. Steve Jones disagrees.
Snapshot Isolation Level in SQL Server - What, Why and How - Part 1
Snapshot isolation levels improve performance but there are some things to take into consideration when using this feature. Arshad Ali discusses what snapshot isolation levels are, their variants, and why and when we should use them.
Guide to MCITP: SQL Server 2008 BI Developer
A guide to the SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence exams.
Time for Your Career
This week Steve Jones wants to know if you can find time for your professional development. Regularly improving your skills is an important part of your career in technology, and the poll this weeks asks what time you can make for improvement.
The T-SQL of CSV: Comma-Delimited of Errors
Despite the neglect of the basic ODBC drivers over the years, they still afford a neat way of reading from, and writing to, CSV files; and to be able to do so in SQL as if they were tables is somewhat magical. Just to prove it is possible, Phil Factor creates a CSV version of AdventureWorks as a linked server.
Performance Test of New Date Manipulation Functions (SQL Spackle)
Performance test of new SQL 2012 functions DateTimeFromParts and Format
Teambuilding and Bonding
Steve Jones attended a day out from the Red Gate offices recently and he talks about the value of those experiences.
Export data to an earlier SQL Server version
I have data in a SQL Server database that I need to get to an older version of SQL Server. I tried the backup and restore method, but received an error indicating that this wasn't allowed. I also tried to detach and attach the database, but that operation failed too. I understand that typical methods I use to move the database around don't work when I have to work with an earlier SQL Server version. What can I do to get the data out? This is a simple database and I want to spend a minimal amount of effort.
Setup SQL Server on Amazon RDS
Learn how you can set up a new SQL Server instance painlessly on Amazon's Relational Database Service (RDS)
SQL Server on RDS
Amazon now offers SQL Server 2008 R2 in their RDS service. It's an easy way to get working with SQL Server with a minimal investment.
Blogs
Learn about Modern Microsoft Apps in San Diego
By Steve Jones
I wrote about learning today for the editorial: I Can’t Make You Learn. I...
How To Deploy Fabric SQL and Azure SQL Databases with Azure DevOps
By ReviewMyDB
Fabric has CI/CD built in, but if you've tried to use it for database...
A New Word: Attriage
By Steve Jones
attriage – n. the state of having lost all control over how you feel...
Forums
SSRS Reminded Me of the Time Microsoft Retired TMG
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SSRS Reminded Me of the...
Getting results from a Procedure to join to a query
I have a need to execute a stored procedure and return the results to...
Upgrade 2016 Standard to 2022 Express
Title pretty much says it all - can this be done? I've tried several...
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT II
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37 4 NULLWhat is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 4;See possible answers