Balancing Learning
How do you determine when you use a new technique or stick with a tried and true method? Steve Jones notes that we try to teach you new things at SQLServerCentral, but do you use them?
Extract and convert all Excel worksheets into CSV files using PowerShell
Can PowerShell provide an easy way to export Excel as a CSV? Yes. Tim Smith demonstrates that whether you have multiple Excel files, or just multiple worksheets in Excel, PowerShell simplifies the process.
The Development Backup
Backing up your development environment can be important. After all, aren't your developers producing products that you use?
What is DevOps really?
Ops and Development people have plenty of ideas for improving the whole software delivery process, but the task of developing, maturing and communicating these ideas isn't often in their...
Comparing Different Data Types
Comparing columns of different data types can be a drain on resources, as well as our sanity. This is a look into a few strategies for dealing with implicit conversions.
Patching Problems
Problems with SQL Server after applying the Windows 8.1 update have Steve Jones concerned about software updates.
Introduction to the SQL Server Analysis Services Neural Network Data Mining Algorithm
In data mining and machine learning circles, the neural network is one of the most difficult algorithms to explain. Fortunately, SQL Server Analysis Services allows for a simple implementation of the algorithm for data analytics. Dallas Snider explains
Failure
This week Steve Jones has a poll to make you think based on Tim O'Reilly's look back at how he succeeded and failed with his company.
RAID and Its Impact on your SQL Performance
This article attempts to explain RAID's impact on SQL performance.
Microsoft Azure Diagnostics Part 1: Introduction
Having a well thought-out plan for diagnostic data is important for on-premises applications, but it is arguably more important for distributed, highly scalable cloud applications. Michael Collier has provided a clear introduction to Microsoft Azure Diagnostics, including the Diagnostics Agent and how to extract the data.
Blogs
AI Helps Me with My Sloppiness
By Steve Jones
I type fairly well. Well, I type fast, but I do wear out a...
Automatic Index Compaction
By ReviewMyDB
Index maintenance has always meant nightly jobs and a window you have to defend....
The Goldilocks problem – Materialized Views
I’m sure you’ve all heard the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but...
Forums
SQL Art, Part 4: Happy 4th of July — A British DBA's Guide to Celebrating a War We Don't Talk About
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art, Part 4: Happy...
How We Handled a Vendor Retry That Loaded Twice in Snowflake
Comments posted to this topic are about the item How We Handled a Vendor...
Cognitive Coverage
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Cognitive Coverage
Question of the Day
Getting the Average
I have this data in the dbo.Commission table in a SQL Server 2022 database.
salesperson commission Brian 12 Brian 16 Andy 7 Andy 14 Andy 21 Steve 20 Steve NULLAll the data is a varchar, and I decide to run this query to get the totals for each salesperson.
SELECT SalesPerson
, AVG(TRY_PARSE(Commission AS int)) AS TotalCommission
FROM commission
GROUP BY SalesPerson
GO
What average commission is calculated for Steve? See possible answers