There are two key requirements to building software with a team of developers. First, you must have the ability to isolate the software modifications that are not dependent. For code, we do this by branching. For databases, the separation is more difficult to implement. The second key requirement is that we need the ability to merge new, complete, functional changes […]

** This is the last chance to enter the drawing, and to share your thoughts ** We need your help… We’re working with Rackspace to figure out what types of things drive the choices we all make when doing platform selection. We’ve put together a few questions – no strings attached. I could really use your help in making sure […]

As I read the comments for a number of editorials I continue to see folks who have had negative experiences when working on agile projects. I have to say I understand where they are coming from. I also have had negative experiences from time to time. That causes me to wonder, what is it about agile that draws such feelings? […]

We need your help… We’re working with Rackspace to figure out what types of things drive the choices we all make when doing platform selection. We’ve put together a few questions – no strings attached. I could really use your help in making sure we have a great sampling of your thoughts for this decision process. It’s easy, very short, […]

When I was young we used to play a game called Twister. Twister consisted of a mat having four lines of dots. Each line had a different color, Red, Blue, Yellow or Green. It also had a spinner. Someone would spin and call out what action the players had to do on the mat, “Right hand on Red; Left Foot […]

More and more companies seem to be moving away from hiring a pure DBA role. Instead they defer to talented developers who may or may not be able to design a solid database structure. Oddly enough, this doesn’t seem to be as much of a fad as many other silly things companies do; at least with SQL Server. It appears […]

Your database is under attack. You look at the database log and see that someone has been trying for hours to hack your SA password. They haven’t gotten in yet. What do you do? I’m not a security guru, so I’m not going to provide directions here. What I can tell you is that when this happens, it’s too late […]

SQL Server for many versions has allowed for 128 Unicode characters when defining system names. A system name is used for a table, column, view, stored procedure or function, etc. The number of allowed characters allowed in SQL Server has changed over time, being restructured to 30 back in SQL Server 6.5. Other engines may have other constraints. When responding […]

I can still remember a code review with Adam, many years ago. He said, “You have magic numbers! That’s really bad.” Sadly, I didn’t even know what he meant, even though I had been coding for years. Adam went on to explain that Magic Numbers are those times when you create a variable and set it to a scalar value. […]

Kalen Delaney wrote an excellent white paper on the enhanced optimization of SQL Server 2016 In-Memory OLTP Optimization. The changes are dramatic, and enable incredible performance gains at the price of RAM. There are some key things she writes about that I wish to point out, because they result in a truly viable option for systems suffer from Disk Bound […]