The 11th episode is now live, recorded a few weeks ago at the PASS Data Community Summit. This was a lot of fun, us grabbing a space in the convention center and putting this together.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sLQQR7DgYDPj2Ob1muIgU?si=e1589ae8d52947dd
Also on Apple Podcasts
At the recent 2024 PASS Data Community Summit, I saw a lightning talk from Mikey Bronowski on the New T-SQL Functions in SQL Server 2022. Before the talk, I made a joke with him that none of these were new because it’s 2024. They’d been out for 2 years.
Mikey did a nice job, given that he only had 10 minutes, but it was enough to give attendees an idea of some new things they might investigate to use in their own code. If you missed the talk, or you don’t have access to the recordings, we have a series on SQL Server Central that covers these (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) and helps you understand the new options. The list of language changes is also in the MS Docs under What’s New in the Language.
I’m curious if any of you are using these new functions? There are a few time series ones, though I think GENERATE_SERIES is the one many of you might have used. Are any of you using DATE_BUCKET? That looks interesting, but I have to admit I haven’t played with it. STRING_SPLIT with the ordinal is my guess for the most popular function people use.
There are also some new JSON and bit manipulation functions, which might be of use in some situations. GREATEST/LEAST are there, but I’ll have to say these functions haven’t come to mind as solutions in any of my queries or answers I write for questions. I do use the trim functions, though still only with spaces. I guess that some of you might find ways to incorporate trimming with other characters and possibly change old code.
I do think that many of you can likely refactor code and make it cleaner with these functions, but you should test them extensively. As we’ve seen with some language changes, performance isn’t always better, and some changes (like FORMAT), can cause you resource issues. At the same time, if the code performs well, using cleaner code is a good way to perhaps update your codebase and gain some skill with new techniques.
One warning. While I like refactoring code, make sure you do some testing, preferably automated, to be sure you aren’t introducing bugs or missing edge cases that your old code covers well. A cleaner codebase is nice, but having working code is more important.
If you’re using any language features, leave a comment today.
Steve Jones
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mornden – n. the self-container pajama universe shared by two people on a long weekend morning, withdrawing from the world and letting the hours slow to a crawl, coming as close as they’ll ever get to pausing the flow of time, even as they know it’ll eventually rush back in all the faster.
My wife and I used to enjoy mornden early in our relationship. We’d get the Sunday paper, make breakfast, and lay around, reading, relaxing, enjoying the morning. These days, no paper, but we do try and get a couple mornings a week where we sleep in a bit, lay in bed, chat, read, just relax.
We are both (too) type-A and are very busy. Taking a some time to relax each week, pausing time for a few hours, is good.
Life certainly rushes in fast when we get back to it.
From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
I’m off to Live 360 today in Orlando, flying early (I should be somewhere over Texas or Louisiana by now), and busy at the event.
So you get to re-read Boring or Scripting, which describes a bit about my career. I don’t get bored, I find ways to keep busy and make my job better.
Voice of the DBA 