Designing Delta Tables with Liquid Clustering: Real-World Patterns for Data Engineers
Get a short introduction to Liquid Clustering in Databricks.
Fun with JSON
Last year, I used a lot of JSON to exchange data between systems. There are several ways to extract data from a JSON file, but there is one specific, probably less-used possibility that I’d like to highlight. For one project, I received JSON files containing a variable number of parameters and their values. If I […]
Not Just an Upgrade
Choosing to upgrade isn't as simple as many of us would like. Steve has a few thoughts today on the decision to move to a new version of a database server.
SQL Server Long-Running Query Detection: How to Find and Monitor Slow Queries
Monitoring and alerting can be overwhelming tasks, especially for those new to the world of managing production data. One common challenge for any data professional is the identification and management of queries that run for longer than they should.
Metadata Driven Pipelines (Incremental Load): The Fabric Modern Data Platform
This article will use the incremental data load pattern to load data in our raw zone tables.
Why End-User Testing Is Even More Important with AI
I don’t think I’m alone in this frustration, but it crystallized for me recently while trying to do something that should have taken less than two minutes: check in for a flight. What followed was a cascade of app switching and authentication failures. I started in my favorite travel app, moved to one airline app, […]
Supervised versus Unsupervised Training of an Artificial Neural Network
Supervised training of an artificial neural network entails training the network to associate defined patterns with specified labels. Optical Character Recognition is an example of supervised training, where each input pattern is mapped to an alphanumeric character. In unsupervised training, a neural network learns to extract recurring patterns from noisy data. One of the earliest […]
Writing as an Art and a Job
Steve thinks communication is a core sill for technology people, especially in the age of AI.
How to Help Copilot Encourage Good Database Standards
I know a lot of y’all lag behind on upgrading SSMS, but v22.3 just introduced something that you need to be aware of. It’s going to impact any of your users who DO upgrade their SSMS, or who use Github Copilot. There’s something that you can do in order to improve Copilot’s code quality and make it match your preferred coding standards.
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
The SQL Server MCP Server
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The Hidden Danger of Wildcard Operators In Join Operations
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Hidden Danger of Wildcard...
A Worse Computer; A Better Car
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Worse Computer; A Better...
Question of the Day
The SQL Server MCP Server
How do I get an MCP server for my SQL Server 2025 database from Microsoft?
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