Joe Celko A Tale of Identifiers Identifiers aren't locators, and they aren't pointers or links either. They are a logical concept in a relational database, and,... 09 June 2011 14 min read
Phil Factor PATINDEX Workbench The PATINDEX function of SQL Server packs powerful magic, but it is easy to get it wrong. Phil Factor returns... 12 May 2011 14 min read
Joe Celko TIME Gentlemen please! The SQL Server temporal datatypes If you are still using the old Sybase DateTime datatype, it is a good idea to move your code to... 12 May 2011 12 min read
David Berry Performance Implications of Parameterized Queries Why don't we emphasize the huge advantages of parameterized queries over ad-hoc queries in SQL Server? There is a severe... 28 April 2011 19 min read
Joe Celko SQL Server CASE Law SQLs CASE expressions can be powerful magic, but can trap the unwary who are used to the more familiar CASE... 03 March 2011 11 min read
Joe Celko Look-up Tables in SQL Lookup tables can be a force for good in a relational database. Whereas the 'One True Lookup Table' remains a... 01 February 2011 18 min read
Nick Harrison Database Refactoring Although the methodology of refactoring code has been adopted enthusiastically, the same has not really been the case with databases.... 01 February 2011 17 min read
Robert Sheldon Data Conversion in SQL Server Most of the time, you do not have to worry about implicit conversion in SQL expressions, or when assigning a... 06 January 2011 17 min read
Sebastian Meine Dennis Lloyd SQL Server Unit Testing with tSQLt When one considers the amount of time and effort that Unit Testing consumes for the Database Developer, is surprising how... 06 January 2011 11 min read
Joe Celko BIT of a Problem The BIT data type is an awkward fit for a SQL database. It doesn't have just two values, and it... 04 January 2011 12 min read
Phil Factor The Parodist: A SQL Server Application Every year, we ask Phil Factor to celebrate the holiday season with an article on SQL Server Programming that is... 20 December 2010 18 min read
Alex Kuznetsov Tuning SQL Queries with the Help of Constraints The use of constraints is a valuable way of improving query performance as well as maintaining the integrity of the... 07 December 2010 7 min read
Alex Kuznetsov Modifying Contiguous Time Periods in a History Table Alex Kuznetsov is credited with a clever technique for creating a history table for SQL that is designed to store... 25 November 2010 7 min read
Joe Celko Contiguous Time Periods It is always better, and more efficient, to maintain referential integrity by using constraints rather than triggers. Sometimes it is... 22 November 2010 13 min read
Phil Factor Consuming JSON Strings in SQL Server It has always seemed strange to Phil that SQL Server has such complete support for XML, yet is completely devoid... 15 November 2010 26 min read
Alex Kuznetsov Defensive Error Handling TRY...CATCH error handling in SQL Server has certain limitations and inconsistencies that will trap the unwary developer, used to the... 28 October 2010 35 min read
Joe Celko State Transition Constraints Data Validation in a database is a lot more complex than seeing if a string parameter really is an integer.... 08 October 2010 13 min read
Greg Larsen Parameter Sniffing If a SQL query has parameters, SQL Server creates an execution plan tailored to them to improve performance, via a... 20 September 2010 13 min read
Auke Teeninga Minesweeper in T-SQL Whatever happened to the idea that programming in TSQL can be fun? A Simple-Talk reader contributes an article to remind... 02 September 2010 8 min read
Joe Celko The DIS-Information Principle: A Splitting Headache You can easily re-factor bad DML code, but if a database design is wrong, you can do little to rescue... 17 August 2010 10 min read
