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
Robert Sheldon Working with Window Functions in SQL Server With SQL Server 2005, SQL Server introduced some of SQL's window functions, that apply, not to the full set, but... 28 October 2010 12 min read
Joe Celko VALUES() and Long Parameter Lists – Part II The use of the comma-separated list of parameters to a SQL routine, that Phil Factor calls the 'comedy-limited list, is... 28 October 2010 10 min read
Holger Schmeling SQL Server Statistics: Problems and Solutions SQL Server Statistics assist the query optimiser to calculate the best way of running the query. Holger describes every common... 27 October 2010 39 min read
Richard Morris Kevan Riley: DBA of the Day When the ASK.SQLServerCentral.com site started, something magical happened. A band of DBA and developer volunteers got together to ensure the... 18 October 2010 13 min read
Holger Schmeling Queries, Damned Queries and Statistics In a perfect world, we should just be able to write queries and leave the RDBMS to decide the perfect... 14 October 2010 43 min read
Corrin Lakeland Snapper’s Sweet Source Control Corrin Lakeland's busy role as a Data Manager includes supervising the work of all database development. Although he was already... 12 October 2010 6 min read
Fabiano Amorim Showplan Operator of the Week – SORT Fabiano introduces another ShowPlan operator that is used to build a query plan, or perform an operation specified in the... 11 October 2010 5 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
Nick Harrison Under the ORM Hood: Revealing the SQL Your application code may look neat and clean, and you are using a sound Object-relational Mapper, but when you put... 05 October 2010 13 min read
Timothy Ford Investigating Transactions Using Dynamic Management Objects There can be a great difference in the performance of a particular routine in a test database, and in a... 30 September 2010 39 min read
Rod Colledge Policy-based Management and Central Management Servers Whilst it may be more exciting as a DBA to rush around fixing broken databases, it is far better to... 30 September 2010 23 min read
Robert Sheldon Working with the INSERT statement in SQL Server The INSERT statement in SQL Server is versatile. It now allows the insertion of multiple rows of literal values. It... 27 September 2010 12 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
Jonathan Lewis Oracle to SQL Server: Putting the Data in the Right Place Jonathan Lewis is an Oracle expert who is recording his exploration of SQL Server in a series of articles. In... 17 September 2010 24 min read
Richard Morris Ted Krueger: DBA of the Day Ted Krueger is well known for his 'Less-Than Dot' website. He is a SQL Server MVP who has been working... 15 September 2010 12 min read
Fabiano Amorim Showplan Operator of the Week – Stream Aggregate Fabiano continues his mission to explain the Query Optimiser in practical terms, describing, one week at a time, all the... 10 September 2010 9 min read
Jeremy Jarrell Two Steps Forward to More Secure Applications Are you certain that you know enough about cross-site scripting attacks, and SQL Injection to avoid either of them happening... 09 September 2010 10 min read
Andrew Clarke SQL Source Control: The Development Story, Part II When creating SQL Source Control, the team had to make decisions as to which source control systems the tool would... 02 September 2010 14 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
