The Boardgame of Office Politics

Sometimes the stress of interdepartmental friction within organisations can get on top of you, especially between the business and IT when the going gets tough. Simple-Talk's answer is a board game to put it all into perspective. Instead of getting carried away, play the board game instead and reach catharsis.

Happy New Year 2016

Let's look forward to the new year.

The PoSh DBA - Using the Basic PowerShell Paradigms

PowerShell is like any computer language: you must understand the paradigms, the constructs, and the way it is designed to work to get the most value from it. It is no good just translating 'sausage-string' procedural algorithms. To demonstrate how Powersahell should be used as its' creators intended, Laerte Junior shows the difference between PowerShell problem-solving with, and without, PowerShell paradigms.

Plan for failure in automated deployments

Failures happen with manual and automated releases, they are a fact of life. Make sure you know how and when to rollback failed deployments

The End of 2015

Steve Jones looks back at 2015 and the year we had as data professionals.

Actual “Number of Rows Read” in SQL Server Execution Plans

Kendra Little takes a look at the upcoming SQL Server 2016 'Number of Rows Read' feature in action.

Byte Me: Three Wise Men

Best Practices For Deleting SQL Server Data

Inevitably there comes a time where some backend data cleanup needs to be done. Ben Snaidero shares some best practices to follow when deleting data.

Sharing Code

Most people blog to share something they've done, and hopefully with the idea that someone else will learn and benefit from it. Steve Jones is happy to share code, but not everyone seems to be in agreement. In any case, you ought to respect the author's wishes.

Declarative SQL: Using UNIQUE Constraints

In SQL, you can express the logic of what you want to accomplish without spelling out the details of how the database should do it. Nowhere is this more powerful than in constraints. SQL is declarative, and Joe Celko demonstrates, in his introduction to Declarative SQL, how you can write portable code that performs well and executes some complex logic, merely by creating unique constraints.