The 2015/2016 Simple-Talk Awards: Winners Announced

The 2015/16 Simple-Talk Awards have concluded, the votes have been counted and recounted, and the winners have now been announced.

Hunting in Packs

Waterfall is the practice most destructive to developer productivity? Nonsense, according to Phil Factor. Lack of basic team coordination skills comes much higher in the list.

The Data Dewey Decimal System

Steve Jones looks at the idea of cataloging our data sets in order to make it easier for

Getting Started with Temporal Table in SQL Server 2016 – Part 1

With the new temporal table feature, SQL Server 2016 internally manages two tables: a base table, which contains the latest data all the time, and a history table, which contains a history of all of the changes. Arshad Ali looks at the new feature, how it works, and how to either create a new table with this feature or enable it for an existing table.

Finding Special Characters within Character Strings

Special Characters can lead to many problems. Identifying and reporting on them can save a lot of headache down the road.

The Comeback of Migrations-Based Deployments

With database deployments, not all script-based processes are equal. Some use change scripts in a free-and-easy way, and some, which are normally called ‘migrations-based approaches’, have more discipline around them. In this article, Redgate Product Manager Elizabeth Ayer covers ‘migrations’, and shows some of the benefits that have come with new tooling which is specifically designed to assist the change script processes.

Naming Is Hard

Naming objects and variables in software can create contention in a team. While there are good conventions and standards, ultimately a team just needs to agree on something.

Exploring SQL Server 2016 Dynamic Data Masking – Part Two - Masking and Exporting Data in Existing Tables

Dynamic Data Masking allows you to obscure your confidential data column values at the database engine level for both new and existing SQL Server data. Being able to alter the definition of an existing column to add a masking rule makes it very simple to obscure your existing column values without even changing your application code.

Byte Me: Spy Where?

Performance Surprises and Assumptions: STRING_SPLIT

SQL Server 2016 RC0 introduces a new native string splitting function, STRING_SPLIT. In this article, Aaron Bertrand compares its performance to existing methods.