DELETE Operation in SQL Server HEAPs
You should stick to using tables in SQL Server, rather than heaps that have no clustered index, unless you have well-considered reasons to choose heaps. However, there are uses for heaps in special circumstances, and it is useful to know what these uses are, and when you should avoid heaps. Uwe Ricken explains, and demonstrates why you'd be unwise to use heaps rather than tables when the data is liable to change.
How to create a directory of object-level scripts using SQL Compare
It’s often useful to be able to create a directory of object-level scripts from an existing database, for example to put a database into version control, or search through a directory of scripts. In this simple ‘how to’ article, Feodor Georgiev expands on the four most common reasons, and shows how simple it is using SQL Compare.
SQL Server 2016 New Date Objects
SQL Server 2016 introduced three new objects to deal with the greater demand of data; John Miner takes a look at this new functionality.
Stairway to U-SQL Level 10: Table-Valued Functions and UDTs
Table-Valued Functions and User-Defined Types can help you write parameterised U-SQL views in an elegant manner. They also aid code reuse.
Migrating data to Azure SQL Data Warehouse in practice
Rangarajan Srirangam from the Azure Customer Advisory Team shares some tips and techniques to help achieve an efficient data migration to Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
Developer Deployment Frustrations
SQL Server should work to make it easy for developers to work with it, and include versions like Express in their applications.
Error Logging Gone Wild
Many of have applications that log errors to a table. Ever thought about what happens when an application starts to throw a lot of errors? This article looks at the problem and some of the responses you might consider having ready in case it happens to you!
Going Interactive with C#
For some time now, C# programmers have gazed enviously at the interactive capabilities of F#, Python and PowerShell. For rapid prototyping work and interactive debugging, dynamic languages are hard to beat. C# Interactive slipped into view quietly, without razzmatazz, in Visual Studio 2015 Update 1. It's good, it's worth knowing about; and Tom Fischer is intent on convincing you of that.
Blogs
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Presenting Twice in May 2026
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I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...
Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger
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I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...
Forums
DB Design Methods
I've read a few posts regarding what we use to design DB models and...
Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes
I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...
What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?
I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...
Question of the Day
An Unusual Identity
What values are returned when I run this code?
CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
id
FROM dbo.IdentityTest2 See possible answers