Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Music City Data

    I’ve never spoken in Tennessee. I’ve wanted to visit, but the I’ve only managed to drive through a part of the state or transfer in the airport. That changes at the end of this month.

    Music City Tech, a three day conference consisting of Coding, Agile, and Data tracks, takes place in Nashville on May 31-June 2. It’s at Vanderbilt University, and there are a lot of great sessions on the schedule.

    I’ll be delivering two talks, one on DevOps and one on security/encryption on Saturday. I’m looking forward to the conference, with some great .NET and development talks on Thursday and Friday, with a nice spread of data talks on Saturday.

    If you’re near the area, you can get tickets for a very reasonable price for the conference. I hope to see you there.

  • Reaching the Refactoring Redoubt with #SQLPrompt

    I enjoy themes, and when I ran across the SQL Prompt Treasure Island, I had to take a few minutes and go through it. I wrote about Code Snippet Cove first, and this post finishes my movement around the map. The other items I’ve read about are:

    Refactoring is Hard

    One of the things that I struggle with, and I think many others do as well, is refactoring. Not that refactoring or changing code is hard, but remembering to get all the various places changed can be a challenge. It seems that any refactoring might change an item in three or four places, but then forget one more, which leads to bugs and embarrassment.

    Fortunately, SQL Prompt has a few things to help. Smart Rename is one of these, which will let you know about all of the dependencies and places where code will change. This makes quick work of renames, which is something I’ve appreciate in other languages, but not T-SQL before this.

    Note that renaming objects is still disruptive and can break connected applications, so this still should be undertaken with care, and in synchronization with renaming the objects in application code.

    There are also the renaming of variables, which can be helpful when you realize that your short or obscure names aren’t helpful to others on your team.

    Perhaps my favorite refactoring feature is the Encapsulate as New Stored Procedure. I think more people should be using stored procedures, and while we might experiment and develop code as a batch or query, we want to move this to a stored procedure. This feature makes this simple for developers, and it’s one you should ensure they know how to use.

    There are other items in the treasure map, many of which are useful, but you’ll want to practice with them and decide which ones are most useful and helpful in your daily work.

    If you haven’t tried SQL Prompt, download an eval today and give it a go. I bet you will love it and ask for your own copy.

  • Finding Tabs in SSMS–#SQLNewBlogger

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

    Someone posted this as a question and I thought it was worth noting. I use SQL Prompt for formatting, and never worry if there are tabs in code, but I know there are people without this amazing tool.

    I added some tabs to a script and want to replace them.

    2018-05-04 09_50_15-SQLQuery1.sql - (local)_SQL2016.sandbox (PLATO_Steve (60))_ - Microsoft SQL Serv

    I hit CTRL+H for the search and replace toolbar. The tab character is represented by a \t in a regular expression. I enter that, and then enter 4 spaces in the replace text box. I do need to click the “Use Regular Expressions” button, which is the one my arrow is on in the image below. It’s a little box with an asterisk in it

    2018-05-04 09_51_39-SQLQuery1.sql - (local)_SQL2016.sandbox (PLATO_Steve (60))_ - Microsoft SQL Serv

    When I do that, tabs are highlighted in SSMS.

    2018-05-04 09_53_32-SQLQuery1.sql - (local)_SQL2016.sandbox (PLATO_Steve (60))_ - Microsoft SQL Serv

    If I click “replace all”, I see 4 replacements, and if I check, the tabs are gone and spaces live.

    2018-05-04 09_51_48-SQLQuery1.sql - (local)_SQL2016.sandbox (PLATO_Steve (60))_ - Microsoft SQL Serv

    SQLNewBlogger

    This is a quick post, an example of what you can do to show you’re building better work habits and learning about your tools.

  • First Wave of Sessions for PASSSummit Now Available

    The first wave of sessions for the #PASSSummit have been released. You can see the list at: http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Learn/ConferenceSessions.aspx

    I am honored to have a session on the list. This year, I’ll be doing a session called Minimizing the Impact of Data Breaches in Dev and Test Databases. This is a partner session, and I’ll talk about some of the issues with data security in your development area and show some ways that you can mitigate the problems.

    There are some other really interesting sessions on the schedule, such as Ola’s  Analyzing Performance Problems Using XEvents, DMVs & Query Store and Faster SSIS from Andy Leonard.  Check out the complete list and start to find those sessions that will help you in your job. Use that information to help build a case for you to come to the Summit.

    I expect we’ll see releases of more sessions across the next few weeks or months. Keep an eye out for new sessions so you can update your schedule.