SQL Saturday #308 - Houston, TX
SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. This event will be held May 10, 2014. Register while space is available.
About the Size of Things
There have been some noticable failures of big IT projects this week, but are they always a problem?
Oiling the gears for the data dictionary
Documenting the database is always a challenge, and there are many techniques you can use to help all the people on your team understand what all your tables are used for. David Poole brings us an easy way to implement a framework for documentation.
The Reading Poll
This week Steve Jones asks about how important reading is to you, and also about what our digital rights might be in a world where we have connected platforms.
PowerShell One-Liners: Help, Syntax, Display and Files
Michael Sorens aims to make PowerShell a bit easier to get going with by providing a series of collections of general-purpose one-liners to cover most of what you'll need to get useful scripting done.
XML Workshop : Utilizing Relational Data In XML Files
Have you received an XML file that must be migrated into a production database? Today’s workshop dives into an ad hoc method of processing relational datasets delivered in an XML file format.
Prevent multiple users from running the same SQL Server stored procedure at the same time
There is a stored procedure that must be run by only one user at a time. In this tip, learn how to prevent multiple users from running the stored procedure at the same time.
Open Source the MCM
The MCM certification program has been abandoned by Microsoft. Steve Jones thinks the material can still be useful for the community.
Database Normalization Basics
The task of Database Normalization doesn't have to be painful, especially if you follow Old Mother Celko's Normalization Heuristics.
Due Diligence
How can you perform due diligence on new employees? There are a variety of ways, but Steve Jones has an idea that might help you nudge a potential employer in the direction you want them to move.
Blogs
Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194
By Steve Jones
We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...
Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art
By Steve Jones
I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...
Simple Talks Podcasting in 2026
By Steve Jones
I’m in the UK today, having arrived this morning in London. Hopefully, by this...
Forums
Learning From Breakage
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Learning From Breakage
Python in Action to Auto-Generate an Optimized PostgreSQL Index Strategy
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Python in Action to Auto-Generate...
Adding and Dropping Columns I
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding and Dropping Columns I
Question of the Day
Adding and Dropping Columns I
I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList] ( [CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1), [CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOI decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use? See possible answers