Daily Coping 18 Dec 2020

Posted on December 18, 2020 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to buy and extra item and donate it to a local food bank.

The food bank has always been important to me. I used to volunteer with my kids, helping them understand how lucky they are and how others may not be. Every year, I’ve tried to donate some supplies to either of those close to me, though probably not often enough.

This year, with the strange world we live in and fewer trips, I know there are plenty of people in need. I decided to do some extra donations to the local bank. Rather than give them some food items, I purchased some local gift cards and gave them. The food bank uses these for perishable items, like milk,  eggs, etc.

I also set a reminder to do this regularly.

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Join the New Stars of Data

Posted on December 17, 2020 by way0utwest

Standing in front of a group, large or small, was one of the most intimidating things to me as a young man. I hated making presentations in school and university to others. As I moved through my career, however, I realized that this was an important skill for my career.

Often in many positions, I had the chance (or need) to debate, argue, or just present a viewpoint to others on my team or inside my organization. I had to train others, teaching them about our systems. I had to explain my decisions to management and defend actions. All of these moments required speaking and communication skills.

You can take a chance and share something with others by submitting to The New Stars of Data. Their next event is in March, which gives you lots of time to prepare, practice, and get feedback before delivering a session. If that’s too soon, I’m we’ll see another GroupBy conference, SQL Saturday, or other virtual event that will consider you. I’d ask that all of these events reserve 10% of their slots for new speakers to their event. After all, it can be less intimidating to speak virtually, and there are lots of opportunities right now.

Many of you might not think you’re smart enough, or an expert in some area. I’ll share a little secret with you: I’m not either. I often see questions at SQLServerCentral or in the Microsoft MVP email list that amaze and surprise me. I truly feel like an impostor at these moments, when I realize I don’t know or understand something.

At some point in life I started to take chances and deliver small talks at work or user groups. I realized that I didn’t need to be an expert to teach something to others. I realized I could have some success, even without being the smartest person in the room. There are always people that know more, but there are always others that want to learn something simple. Level 101 talks are always popular and in demand.

Take a chance today, and submit to the New Stars of Data. I’m happy to help you with an abstract, or give you feedback on a practice talk. William, Ben, and many others will help as well. Submit a talk, ask for help, and continue to grow your career.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 17 Dec 2020

Posted on December 17, 2020 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to be generous and feed someone with food, love, or kindness today.

My love language is Acts of Service, and I do this often, preparing things for the family when I can. Recently I asked my son what he’d want for dinner. He comes down once or twice a month from college for a few days, and I try to ensure he enjoys the time.

His request: ramen.

I put this together for him, and the family, last Friday night.

20201207_190958

The sushi I bought, because that’s something he enjoys, and I’m not nearly as good as some local chefs.

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No Scalars with JSON_QUERY–#SQLNewBlogger

Posted on December 16, 2020 by way0utwest

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

I started to dig into JSON queries recently, and as I continued to experiment with JSON, this struck me as strange. Why is there a NULL in the result?

2020-12-04 14_43_02-SQLQuery3.sql - ARISTOTLE_SQL2017.Compare2 (ARISTOTLE_Steve (58))_ - Microsoft S

The path looks right. This appears to be somewhere I ought to get a result back. As I looked up the JSON_QUERY documentation, and it says I get an object or array back. I’d somewhat expect that position, while containing a single value, could be seen as an object of

{“setter”}

The fact that I need to know I have a single value here seems like poor design. If the document changes, perhaps someone might enter this:

DECLARE @json NVARCHAR(1000)
     = N'
  {  "player": {
              "name" : "Sarah",
              "position" : "setter, DS"
             },
    "team":"varsity" 
  }

';

In this case, a JSON_VALUE would fail, while a JSON_QUERY wouldn’t work in the first example above. This means that I need to modify my code based on documents.

I don’t like this, but I need to know this, so if you work with JSON, make sure you know how the functions work.

SQLNewBlogger

While writing the previous post, I changed one of the function calls and got the NULL. I had to fix things for the other post, but I kept the query and then spent about 10 minutes writing this one to show a little thought into the language.

You can easily take something you are confused about, made a mistake doing, or wonder about and write your own post.

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