Clearing Intellisense in SQL Prompt

Posted on December 13, 2023 by way0utwest

I got this question from an account rep: if a customer is using SQL Prompt and a snippet, for example AT, that was also used as an alias, is there a way to avoid it triggering the snippet or do they just avoid hitting the tab key?

It’s a good question. Let’s see how to deal with this.

This is part of a series of posts on SQL Prompt. You can see all my posts on SQL Prompt under that tag.

The Scenario

Say I have this code:

2023-12-01 16_36_26-SQLQuery1.sql - ARISTOTLE_SQL2022.sandbox (ARISTOTLE_Steve (80))_ - Microsoft SQ

Notice I have an alias that is the same as a snippet, in this case AT. Seeing this pop up is annoying, but there are ways to avoid getting concerned about this.

First, the Esc key will get rid of the intellisense popup. Pressing escape at this point brings me back to this:

2023-12-01 16_36_18-SQLQuery1.sql - ARISTOTLE_SQL2022.sandbox (ARISTOTLE_Steve (80))_ - Microsoft SQ

My other option is to type a ., essentially keep typing. If I do that, I get this:

2023-12-01 16_39_10-SQLQuery1.sql - ARISTOTLE_SQL2022.sandbox (ARISTOTLE_Steve (80))_ - Microsoft SQ

The same thing if I had a longer alias. Here I’ve added 2 characters, but if I type the 3rd, the snippet goes away and I get the table. I could hit tab here to fill this in or type the s.

2023-12-01 16_39_32-ObjectDefinitionBox

The other thing to do is raise the time for intellisense if it’s popping up too quickly and annoying you. I don’t know the default (nor do I want to reset lots of stuff), but here I’d set it to 100ms, which is a nice delay for me. I find 500 too long. Of course, you can CTRL+space to pop it open.

2023-12-01 16_41_10-SQL Prompt – Options

If you haven’t tried SQL Prompt, download the eval and give it a try. I think you’ll find this is one of the best tools to increase your productivity writing SQL.

Video Walkthrough

I made a video of getting rid of intellisense. You can also see all my SQL Prompt Tips.

 

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Who Still Uses SP_ for Naming?

Posted on December 13, 2023 by way0utwest

An interesting post recently from Chad Callihan on the reasons why someone shouldn’t use sp_ to prefix their stored procedures. This is advice that I’ve seen for years, but I haven’t run into this lately with many customers. It seems I do see some usp_, but not sp_. I think that’s good, and if you’re not sure why, read Chad’s post.

I think my main reason for not doing this is that I sometimes create procs in master. Not because it’s a good idea (it isn’t) or I want to, but because I’ll make mistakes. I’ll accidentally connect to master and deploy a script, because I’m not paying enough attention. Usually, I’ll catch this right away, but if not, soon after I’ve told a client things are working, they’ll let me know they aren’t. Then I connect to the right database.

In a vacuum, or even as you sit reading this today, it’s easy to criticize someone else for making the mistake of connecting to the wrong database, or even forgetting to delete the object in master after I’ve created it in the right one. However, all of us are human. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll be pressed for time or sick or tired or want to leave or some other situation where we aren’t using all of our faculties. Even if none of those are true, we might depend on muscle memory because we’ve done this 1,000 times (or may 12 times in the last hour) and then don’t notice we’ve connected to the wrong database.

What might be even worse if when we’re updating objects and potentially update in one place but not another. What if v7 of the proc is in the user database, but v5 is in master. Who knows if we (or the client) will notice things aren’t working as expected right away.

Mistakes are one of the reasons I try hard to get everyone to follow a DevOps approach. Put your code in version control (so you know where it is when you make mistakes), use automation and CLI calls to deploy code. Whether you use something like Flyway or your own SQLCMD scripts, make sure things are automated. Then ensure you have logs with commands run, and if needed, output from the scripts.

We’re human, we make mistakes, so figuring out how to automate a process and then ensuring that automation is running results in repeatable, reliable deployments. Something we should all want, especially the control-obsessive DBAs.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

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Breaking Biometrics

Posted on December 11, 2023 by way0utwest

In the movies, when someone needs to bypass some sort of fingerprint biometric system, they use tape to lift a fingerprint, or in the more gory films, cut off a body part. In any case, there have been a lot of attempts to replicate this in the real world. Sometimes these work, though the consensus is modern hardware isn’t as susceptible as older hardware. I don’t know if that’s true, but I did see an interesting look at the main three sensors used in most laptops.

All the laptops had their authentication bypassed, though not with any fake biometric device, but rather with attacking the actual communications between the sensor and the OS. There’s a great report from two people who were asked by Microsoft to evaluate the security of the top three sensors. It’s a fascinating look at how the hardware and software of the OS are set up to provide secure authentication and how both can be fooled.

Some of the problems are users not enabling features and some are that manufacturers aren’t understanding or implementing the secure protocols from Microsoft. I both get how this happens and I feel it’s not acceptable. Certainly someone might read a spec and not completely understand it, even across a team of people. However, for vendors, this can’t be something they don’t have researchers, pen testers, or some security professional examine. Hardware vendors spending money designing these devices ought to include the money for a few people to try and break the security before they are sold.

At least for security features.

I like the enhancements made with multi-factor authentication, and I appreciate biometrics as a convenient way to access things. At the same time, I want to be able to trust them. The efforts made by the researchers are pretty high, not something that someone in a coffee shop can do in 5 minutes while you go to the bathroom. At least, apart from the Surface. It appears that one can be quick.

At the same time, if you lose your laptop, within hours someone can break past the biometrics with a man-in-the-middle attack. Even if you’ve encrypted the disk, your data can be accessed since this attack gets the OS to authenticate them.

Security is tricky, but I don’t plan on disabling my fingerprint scanner. However, if I were carrying around data that was more important than the work I do now or data worth a lot of money, I don’t know I’d ever enable biometrics.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

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Executing One Line in VSCode–#SQLNewBlogger

Posted on December 11, 2023 by way0utwest

I wrote about arrays in PowerShell last week, but I realized one of the things I did while experimenting was look up how to run code a line at a time. I’m sure you can Google for that, but I decided to write a post to help me remember this in the future.

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

Running One Line

Years ago I saw someone demonstrating either PoSh or Python in Visual Studio and they were walking through code a line at a time. I thought that was cool, like a debugger, but not being in the debugger.

To do this in VS Code, we use F8. Here’s how it works. Create a new PoSh file in VS Code. You should see something like this:

2023-12-01 14_01_11-● oneline.ps1 - Visual Studio Code_thumb[1]

Now put the cursor on line 1, anywhere. I’ll put it after the = sign. If I press F8, I see this:

2023-12-01 14_02_03-● oneline.ps1 - Visual Studio Code_thumb[1]

Pretty cool. I just ran that line.

One Hassle

The one hassle is the focus is now in the terminal. However CTRL+Tab gets me back to the editor, though it would go to the Welcome tab here. However, supposedly CTRL+1 or 2 would work.

My problem is those are mapped to ZoomIt, which is always running Sad smile

I hit CTRL+Tab twice, however, and I was back in my editor. I could go down one line and hit F8 to run the second code.

2023-12-01 14_02_52-● oneline.ps1 - Visual Studio Code_thumb[1]

Try it for yourself.

If you have a better method, let me know.

SQL New Blogger

After the last post, I spent less than 10 minutes setting up a new file and then capturing some code. A couple google searches helped me figure out the terminal/editor switching.

This was fun, but it also showcased some learning and something that will help me in my work. You could easily do the same thing, with any tool you use at work. Show how you experiment and learn.

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