The Challenge of Early Tech Decisions
We often live with our early decisions on technology, which can be a challenge over time.
Things Move Fast
I have several things I’d like to say in the editorial today, but I feel I have to start off with my condolences to the family of Queen Elizabeth II. For that matter, my condolences to the people of Britain. This truly is the end of an era. Things do indeed move fast sometimes. Working […]
Understanding the System Function FILEPROPERTY()
Learn how to use the system function, FILEPROPERTY(), to get information about your database in T-SQL.
Data Visualizations for Excel Multi-Chart Sets with SQL Server Data
This article covers how to create multi-chart visualizations in Excel using data from SQL Server.
Rollbacks, Undos and Undonts
Rollback scripts are designed to allow us to recover safely from a failed deployment that leaves the database in an indeterminate state. They must check exactly what needs to be reverted before doing so. If you work with an RDBMS that cannot support transaction DDL rollback they are vital. This article proposes a strategy where you create and test a rollback file, at the same time as the forward migration, and reuse it as a Flyway undo script.
Developer Optimism
Developers, in general, are very optimistic about the code they write. This is likely one cause of their estimates of the time required being low, as well as the various bugs that slip through because of corner cases that appear for the problem being solved. Often developers think they've considered the various ways this code […]
SQL Ledger: Protecting Data in Azure SQL
Learn how you can set up and use Ledger tables in an Azure SQL Database to verify the integrity of your database changes.
How to Expand a Range of Dates into Rows with the SQL Server Function GENERATE_SERIES
In this tip, we cover how to use the GENERATE_SERIES function to expand a range of dates into rows
Introducing the MySQL SELECT statement
Use SELECT statements to query a MySQL database. In this article, Robert Sheldon explains how.
Blogs
Setting Up a Mac for Data Engineering and AI Work
If you work with data pipelines, SQL, notebooks, or machine learning models, a Mac...
Want to look at cloud reporting but not sure what the costs will be?
By ChrisJenkins
Have you been thinking about migrating your reporting to Microsoft Fabric or Snowflake but...
The Joyful Craftsmen and the Revolt BI join forces
The Joyful Craftsmen has become the new owner of Revolt BI. The merger creates...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
SQL Server Enum Implementation: A Single-Row View Strategy for Avoiding Magic Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Enum Implementation: A...
BIT_COUNT I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BIT_COUNT I
Question of the Day
BIT_COUNT I
In SQL Server 2025, I have a table (dbo.UserPermission) that contains this data:
UserID UserPermissions 15 23 37What is returned when I run this code:
select bit_count(UserPermissions) as PermissionCount from dbo.UserPermission where UserID = 3;See possible answers