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T-SQL Tuesday #018 – CTEs

Invitation and wrapup from Bob Pusateri.

The Topic

This month’s topic is CTEs, or Common Table Expressions. Had you asked me 10 years ago what CTE meant, I would have replied “coefficient of thermal expansion” but that was back in my semiconductor & electronic materials phase. I like the database version much better 🙂

Have you ever solved or created a problem by using CTEs? Got a tip, trick, or something nifty to share? I’d love to see your posts about any of the above. Also don’t forget that T-SQL Tuesday is not limited to only T-SQL:

“Any post that is related to both SQL Server and the theme is fair game. So feel free to post about SSIS, SSRS, Java integration, or whatever other technologies you’re working with in conjunction with SQL Server. Even if your post includes no T-SQL we still want to see it.”

T-SQL Tuesday #017 – APPLY Knowledge

Site list, but invitation below from Matt Velic.

APPLY Knowledge

Recently on Twitter, I heard the claim that “If you don’t understand the APPLY operator, your skills are somewhere around the 50th percentile at best.” While I believe that Adam was giving a warning to self-proclaimed experts (possibly one he might have been interviewing at the time…), I also believe that we could take it as a challenge as a T-SQL blogging community to learn more about APPLY and the ways in which we can use it in our work.

Please share how you use this wonderful feature. Maybe you know how APPLY works inside and out? Perhaps you’ve got a fantastic user defined function (UDF) to share? Or maybe your experience revolves around using Dynamic Management Functions (DMFs) in your never-ending quest for SQL Server performance? Let the community know as it is time to study!

T-SQL Tuesday #016 – Aggregate Functions

Invitation and SUM() from Jes Borland.

The Topic: Aggregation

No, not aggravation (although I’ve used the two interchangably before). I want to hear how you solved business problems with aggregate functions. I want to see your cool T-SQL tricks. How are aggregates used in SSRS, SSAS, or SSIS? What have you learned about aggregate functions?

Let’s SUM(thoughts), COUNT(ways we’ve done things), and set MAX(awesome) on our posts!

Remember: “any post that is related to both SQL Server and the theme is fair game. So feel free to post about SSIS, SSRS, Java integration, or whatever other technologies you’re working with in conjunction with SQL Server. Even if your post includes no T-SQL we still want to see it.”

T-SQL Tuesday #015 – Automation in SQL Server

Invitation and Summary from Pat Wright.

Having taken part in several T-SQL Tuesday’s I decided I would finally put my name in to host one.  I figured it would be a good way to lose my sanity learn some great ideas from this wonderful SQL community.  I figured that since many of you out there set a goal this year to blog more and to learn Powershell then this Topic should help in both of those goals.    So the topic I have chosen for this month is Automation!   It can be Automation with T-SQL or with Powershell or a mix of both.  Give us your best tips/tricks and ideas for making our lives easier through Automation.  Now here are all the details you’ll need for a successful T-SQL Tuesday post!

T-SQL Tuesday #014 – RESOLUTIONS

Invitation and summary from Sean McCown.

OK, it’s time for TSQLTuesday again and Jen’s making me write something since we’re hosting this month.  So the topic is resolutions, and that in itself isn’t a topic that’s near and dear to me because frankly I just don’t believe in them.  I don’t think you have to wait until a new year begins to resolve to do something you’ve been meaning to do.  In fact, that pretty much dooms you to not completing it because it takes more than the turning of a calendar page and a romantic notion to accomplish something.  If it were really that easy, you would have done it already so it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Your new year can start anytime really.  Hell, doing a new year’s resolution doesn’t even line up with my review period at work, so if I relied on the new year to start something new I’d lose 3mos making good on what I’m supposed to accomplish for work.  People in IT quite often put personal goals in their yearly goals at work.  Things like getting certified, or perfecting a process, or taking management classes, etc are all things that are commonly found in your yearly goals at work.  So if you’re going to make some kind of resolution to do something, or to stop doing something, why not put it where it actually makes more sense… in your work goals.  Your bonus quite often relies on you completing your goals so it’s really the perfect place.  And it gives you a better excuse to have the resolution to begin with because you can use the bonus as motivation.

So even if you’re going to make a resolution at work, try to make it something you can actually do.  One of the biggest reasons for failure is someone will set a goal that’s completely ridiculous for them and when the goal starts slipping they get discouraged and just give up.  I’d like to get my MCM this year, but I don’t even have any of the lower certs yet.  Well, chances are you’re not going to make it dude.

2010 T-SQL Tuesdays

T-SQL Tuesday #13 – What the Business Says Is Not What the Business Wants

Invitation and roundup from Steve Jones.

I was giving a presentation recently and someone in the audience started to ask about why I recommended against a certain technique. Without getting into it, this person kept saying that she had to implement things her way since the “business” said they needed it done that way. However a little digging showed that the business didn’t really understand the technology. They were asking for a result, and she took them literally in how she implemented a process. A classic impedance mismatch.

I think we’ve all had situations that are similar. The business, the client, the customer, is asking for something, but they don’t know how to ask those of us building the technology. Or they don’t understand the implications of asking for something like “absolutely zero data loss” to be implemented.

The official topic this month is:

What issues have you had in interacting with the business to get your job done.

T-SQL Tuesday #012 – Why are DBA skills necessary?

Invitation and summary from Paul Randal.

Invitation to participate in T-SQL Tuesday #12 – Why are DBA skills necessary?

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: October 25, 2010 6:58 am

This month I’d like to step back from the deep technical stuff and ask “why are DBA skills necessary?”

I don’t want to color people’s opinions by giving my own yet, but some things to consider are:

  • What problems have you seen in your career that could have been avoided with some DBA skills?
  • At what point does a SQL Server installation need a real DBA to look after it?
  • How could DBA input help prevent design problems in data applications?
  • Should there be cross-over been developer skills and DBA skills? What about architects? Storage admins?
  • How can business continuity be affected by lack of DBA skills?
  • How much can we rely on auto-tuning to ensure performant work loads?
  • Is Microsoft doing enough to foster DBA skills as a point of excellence?
  • What about on other RDBMS platforms? What about no-SQL?

I could go on for hours… I’m really looking forward to seeing where you take this topic and I’m expecting some great posts.

T-SQL Tuesday #011 – Misconceptions in SQL Server

Invitation  from Sankar Reddy.

Why are so many Misconceptions in SQL Server?

SQL Server as a product is maturing with every new version since its inception and getting better and better over the years. But there seems to be lot of misunderstanding of some SQL Server concepts in the community and probably in my opinion its because of one or more items listed below.

1. While some information holds true in previous versions but they don’t hold true in newer versions (after some components were re-written, optimized).
2. Bugs in older versions are fixed in newer versions.
3. Taking the words out of context from someone’s publication/blogs etc…
4. Someone simply misunderstood the concepts.
5. Never realized the depth of the internals or the scope of the subject.
6. Taking marketing fluff as truth.
7. Too much generalization of the facts based on one or two incidents.

The possibilities for writing up a post on this topic invloving SQL Server are enormous even if you are a novice blogger or the industry expert on SQL Server. So get ready with your [misconceptions, myth-busters, de-mystifiers, do you know, back to basics, fact checking] posts on SQL Server and help the community learn more stuff while setting the facts straight.

I want to take a moment and request if you are working on a misconception that was already busted by someone else in the community and your approach is also very similar then please give credit to the person that did the work prior to you in your post.

T-SQL Tuesday #010 – Indexes

Invitation and roundup from Michael J. Swart.

Indexes are strange things. You never need to explicitly create one to create a fully-functional database, but if you want a database to perform well, they’re indispensable.

And there are so many aspects to write about! Like internals, covering, clustered, xml, fulltext, b-trees, hints, maintenance of, included columns, filtered, redundant, missing and tons more.

In fact my SQL Server 2008 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant (The first handy textbook I could grab) has an index entry on “indexes” that has 22 sub-entries.