Why Standards are Important
There is something in the tech mindset that simultaneously loves and loathes a standard. Having standards is important, what those standards are is less so.
How to Install SSIS in Visual Studio 2019
This tool has always been an integral part of the Visual Studio. However, the name of this tool as well as the method of its installation varies from version to version of Visual Studio (VS). In this article, we are going to illustrate how to install SSIS in Visual Studio 2019.
Influencing a Local AI
I set up a local AI LLM to run and then conducted some experiments. This post shows a bit about the experiments and a little code. The setup is on my blog using Docker to containerize an Ollama LLM, which you can read about. The Basic Setup If you read my blog, I downloaded an […]
Why Tools Can Help You Do Your Job
This editorial was originally published on May 18, 2019. It is being re-run as Steve is on holiday. Back in my days as a SQL server DBA, I didn't have many third-party tools at my disposal. I remember having a monitoring tool with licenses for only three or four SQL server instances. Whenever there was […]
Demystifying Continuous Integration vs. Continuous Delivery Part 3 – Real World Examples of CI CD
This article covers examples of how some larger companies have successfully implemented CI/CD practices to transform their development processes.
Vector DB implementation using FAISS
Searching for relevant information in vast repositories of unstructured text can be a challenge. This article explains a Python-based approach to implementing an efficient document search system using FAISS (Facebook AI Similarity Search) for Vector DB and sentence embeddings, which can be useful in applications like chatbots, document retrieval, and natural language understanding. In this […]
The Ebb and Flow of AI
Everybody’s coasting and looking back. Let’s kick our heels up, get comfortable, and talk big picture industry stuff.
The Managed Cloud Database Options
You have a number of options for moving your database to the cloud, but Steve has a few things you might want to consider before you do so.
Five changes to SQL Server I’d love to see
I’ve had lots of wish lists over the years, from Ladybug to Connect to UserVoice, and very few of my dreams ever come true. Still, it’s fun every once in a while, to be whimsical about the way I wished SQL Server worked. Especially in January because, you know, new beginnings.
Blogs
T-SQL Tuesday #203: Risk and Reward
By Steve Jones
This is timely, as I’m currently on a boat in the Adriatic taking a...
dataMinds Connect 2026 – Slides & Scripts
You can find the slides and SQL scripts for my session “Spice up your...
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later)
By SQLPals
How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later) Updated...
Forums
Using CHOOSE()
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Using CHOOSE()
Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping Secondary (Without Touching the Primary)
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping...
The DBA is Dead! Long Live the !
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The DBA is Dead! Long...
Question of the Day
Using CHOOSE()
We have this code that sets some status values and then queries them using the CHOOSE() function in SQL Server 2025.
CREATE TABLE Status
(
StatusID INT,
StatusDescription VARCHAR(20)
);
GO
INSERT dbo.Status
(
StatusID,
StatusDescription
)
VALUES
(0, 'Uncategorized'),
(1, 'Active'),
(2, 'Inactive'),
(3, 'Temp');
GO
SELECT CHOOSE(StatusID, 'Unknown', 'Active', 'Inactive', 'Temporary')
FROM Status;
When the SELECT runs, what is returned? See possible answers