Who is Using Standard Edition?

Posted on August 15, 2025 by way0utwest

For many years, most of the SQL Server installations I managed or deployed to were Standard Edition. Even in large companies that had agreements with Microsoft, since each instance had a cost (even at a discount), we were careful about where we installed Enterprise Edition.

These days with Microsoft wanting to charge everyone for every core, it makes sense to use Standard Edition wherever you can.

One great change for those of us that need to develop for Standard Edition is what Joey calls the most requested feature for SQL Server 2025. We can now install a Standard version of the Developer Edition. This is something many teams have desired since developers tend to use the features available to them, and until now, every Developer Edition has been equivalent to Enterprise Edition (EE). This has resulted in lots of scripts that use EE features, which won’t run on production Standard Edition servers.

I’m wondering how many of you out there are running standard edition? Leave a comment and let us know. I suspect there are plenty of organizations who have simple apps and run Standard to save money. I know I’ve had many employers that wanted to do this, especially for systems that didn’t need large numbers of cores.

I wanted to write about a Standard version of Developer edition as an April Fool’s joke in 2024 but was told not to do it. I suspected this version was coming, and I’m glad that it’s finally announced. As long as we have different features in different editions, we need a developer version of each edition.

Steve Jones

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

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

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T-SQL Tuesday #189–AI and your Career

Posted on August 13, 2025 by way0utwest

I’m late to the party this month. Taiob Ali has a great invite for a topic that is likely on most people’s minds: AI and your career. I constantly hear people asking about this (well not lately, I’ve been on sabbatical).

I love the T-SQL Tuesday blog party and hope more people participate. Spread the word, ask others to write, and help promote this on socials.

AI and My Career

I’ve been a bit skeptical that AI would really help me. For the last 15-20 months I’ve been using AI in different ways, experimenting with things and seeing where it might be useful. A lot of my use has been in VS Code and Copilot, where I do some coding, and a lot of markdown/HTML management. Across that time I’ve found AI to be more and more useful with reformatting or suggestions completions.

More importantly, I’ve learned to “see” the hints and suggestions quicker and have AI save me time in little ways. None of the items are big, and it hasn’t built me a big piece of code, but I have found it to be very useful in saving minutes. Saving minutes multiple times a day starts to add up in the week and months.

My Outlook

I think AI will help me in my career in two big ways. First, there is the time saving and assistance it gives me that lets me be more productive. I look forward to more agents that can be configured to handle some tasks for me and just get things done. I haven’t been a big Siri/Hey Google person with setting appointments and small tasks, but I can see some of this starting to be more useful over time. I bet I can get some services and agents to do some work for me with natural language that eases my job.

I also think this GenAI tech (and other AI) will help me learn new skills and techniques. I’ve seen some people talking about using an AI to help them learn and I need to do some experimenting here. I tried to get it to build some web apps for me and it didn’t go as smoothly as I’d like, but I’m anxious to see if I can get it to help me learn how to better code in new ways as well as generate code for me.

It’s important to be able to judge if the AI is making good decisions, and that requires knowledge. In some cases, I have that knowledge. In others I don’t, but maybe AI can help me learn.

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Using SQL Compare to Revert a Stored Procedure

Posted on August 13, 2025 by way0utwest

Imagine this situation, someone edits a stored procedure on a production server to “fix” something. However, they broke the procedure and you find out the next day. How do you fix this?

We’ll use SQL Compare since most of you don’t have version control (according to surveys), but you do (hopefully ) have backups. Let’s see how SQL Compare can help.

This is part of a series of posts on SQL Compare.

The Scenario

I get a call one morning that we have problems with a report. This report wasn’t producing the expected values. A user said they saw this:

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However,the value the day before had been 2301.54. What was wrong?

Checking with SQL Compare

When I hear this, I think immediately two things:

  1. the data changed
  2. the code changed

Either is possible, but data is most likely. In this case, when I inquired, the user said no new orders were in the system. While I think humans can easily make mistakes when checking data, code is a possibility.

I asked people, but no one responded with a change being made. So let’s check. I know I have backups, so when I run SQL Compare, I change the source to a backup.

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Next, I pick the “add backup files”

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I choose my file(s) and confirm they are correct. In this case, just one file. I set the target to my database.

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I run the comparison, and I see this. There are a few changes, but the one I’m looking for is my procedure. You can see the code is different.

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Arguably, the new code is more correct, but if I need to revert, I can click the deploy button at the top. I’ll want to also just select the SalesReport item.

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This will produce a script that I can run in SSMS. I can also just let SQL Compare run this. Note the old code is in the script.

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Once I run this, the report works, or at least returns the expected results.

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Summary

This is a short demo of using a backup as a comparison source against a database to revert code. In this case, I can see the old code and get that back to ensure my database functions as expected..

SQL Compare is an amazing tool that millions of users have enjoyed for 25 years. If you’ve never tried it, give it an eval today and see what you think.

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Carrots and Sticks

Posted on August 13, 2025 by way0utwest

Often,  we work on projects that might span a significant amount of time. Weeks, months, even years can be devoted to working on one system, or the same system. We may find that our motivation rises and wanes at different times. We get excited and motivated to get things done, and also become discouraged or distracted when challenges arise. Not all of us, or not all the time, but it is hard to maintain a high level of productivity and motivation over time.

For managers, it can be a challenge to keep a team moving over time and focused on achieving goals. Life gets in the way, people take vacations, staff changes, and other things are all issues that can distract a team. Keeping a team focused and productive can be a challenge for many managers. Perhaps especially challenging when someone hasn’t received enough training on how to manage and motivate others.

As tech workers, we could be motivated in a few ways. Perhaps there are goals, achievements, or rewards that spur us on to work harder. There could also be penalties or consequences if we don’t get enough done. There is always the threat of termination, but in practice, I see this as a last resort. More likely are subtle punishments such as boring assignments, more on-call work, or perhaps difficulties in getting vacation approved.

As a worker, do you want more carrots or sticks? Is the possibility of a reward or the threat of punishment a bigger motivator?

I’d like to say that carrots motivate me more, but as I think about it, I’m not sure. The carrot has to be significant to get me to change how I work. I think the stick also has to be fairly severe to force a change, but I think I’m often more motivated by the negative side of things than the positive. I’m sure that’s somehow from my childhood, but if I’m honest with myself, that’s what gets me moving more quickly. Though if there is too much of a stick, I’m quick to look elsewhere.

What about you? Carrots or sticks?

Steve Jones

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

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

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