Are You Working More Hours?
AI is causing some people to work more, which seems at odds with the idea of what AI should be: a useful tool.
Stairway to Reliable Database Deployments Level 6 – Managing Changesets Over Time
As database changesets accumulate over time, they gradually become more than deployment artifacts. This level explores how a well-organized changeset library evolves into a replayable representation of the database’s structural history, supporting not only reliable deployments but also reconstruction, auditing, and long-term maintainability. Through practical examples and a real-world case study, it shows why maintaining coherent Create and Rollback scripts continues to provide value long after a successful production deployment.
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: REGEXP_LIKE
This article goes into one of the new regular expression functions in SQL Server 2025: REGEXP_LIKE().
The best AI developer tools in 2026: from coding agents to code review
AI developer tools have matured fast. In 2026, most engineering workflows touch at least one AI coding agent, code reviewer, or research assistant — but the right combination depends heavily on your team size, codebase, and tolerance for setup overhead. This guide breaks down the tools actually worth using across three categories: research and architecture, day-to-day development, and code review, based on real, hands-on experience.
Advanced T-SQL: Replacing Slow Cursors with Window Functions
This article looks at replacing a cursor with a window function to improve performance.
Finding Bad Queries
Recognizing queries that might perform poorly is a skill that will help you, and your AI assistant, produce better code in production.
Database Animations: You’ve Heard of Page Splits. Here’s What They Really Mean.
You've heard that page splits are bad, and they're an indication that your table design is making your storage work too hard. You've heard that the right answer to fix it is adjusting fill factor lower, or doing regular index maintenance.
VACATION!
Yeah, I've got the Go-Go's running in my head because I'm going on vacation tomorrow (holiday for you UK types). I've been slogging through a really dense book, War in Human Civilization. Total recommendation. Get it. Read it. However, I'm right near the end and there's been a lot of discussion about the impact of […]
Fixing P1 Queries
Steve asks if we should focus on the slowest queries or tackle other issues in our systems. Or if we should even have to make these decisions.
Why SQL Server Database Attach fails and how to repair it
This article covers a few common errors when attaching database files to an instance, with some information on how to resolve the issues.
Blogs
Demo for Parameter Sniffing and Memory Grant Feedback
Disclaimer: The following is built with Claude Code. Just need to justify my $100/mo...
My Social Media Rules
By Brian Kelley
I developed these rules a while back, before COVID. I had a period of...
Why Use TRY_PARSE(): #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
Someone asked why I would use TRY_PARSE after I posted a question at SQL...
Forums
Partitioning a table with TEXTIMAGE_ON option
I have a table that ends in ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]. I'm about to...
OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Comments posted to this topic are about the item OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Building Great Software
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Great Software
Question of the Day
The Range of Customers
I have this data in the OrderHeader table in a SQL Server 2025 database (ordered by CustomerID ASC):
orderid orderdate customerid complete 3 2025-05-10 00:00:00.0002 1 21 2024-01-10 00:00:00.0003 1 15 2023-10-28 00:00:00.0004 1 13 2025-03-08 00:00:00.0006 1 11 2024-04-02 00:00:00.0007 1If I run this query, how many rows are returned?
SELECT * from dbo.OrderHeader where customerid between 3 and '6'See possible answers