A couple months ago I read a post by Seth Godin entitled “Duck!“. In it he talks about avoiding the 2X4 to the face. “You’re running it at it full speed, and in a moment, you’re going to slam into...
A common code smell that attracts my attention right away is when I see an explicit conversion being done, typically done using CAST or CONVERT. However, implicit type casting can be worse and is typically not readily apparent. During code reviews I found...
In one of the discussions this week, I mentioned to the group a video I saw a few years ago that is quite humorous and has some element that will speak to almost anyone who has ever worked on any...
I recently came across a new blog by Ramesh Meyyappan on “Seek or Scan – Cost Based Optimizer in SQL Server“. In the youtube video (17 minutes) he covers the topic with some good examples and explanations, assuming you have...
Oft times trying to use the SQL SSIS Import wizard to load data into SQL server from excel you run into data type conversion errors and have to go through many machinations to alter the offending column data types and...
I can see the confused looks. “Joel what are you talking about?” We’re talking about Batches By default, in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), your query is submitted and executed in a batch. The batch separates the work you want...
Recently Danny sent me a copy of Clean Code – A Handbook of Agile Software Craftmanship in pdf form (Or you can get your very own physical copy ). It is a lengthy read and I have not finished...
SQL Server Central has a free ebook that compiles high level crib sheets that cover a few different areas. These give a good overview of high level concepts and tools that may interest you. It covers a range of areas...
I attended the Kalamazoo X conference again this year. This is a small one day technology conference held in Kalamazoo, MI each year that covers soft skills and business acumen. For the price and quality of speakers I highly recommend people...
We try to build most of our products on sanitized data. However, some things rely on some set of customer data in order to make sure our data extract, transform, and load processes are working for a particular site. Since...