This entire blog post is driven by the #1 feature in this list. I think about the #1 feature a lot, like at least once a week. I think about it so much that I had to stop and think about what other similar great things Microsoft has done over the years, and be thankful for what a nice platform this is to work with. Let's go through 6 of my favorite Microsoft decisions.
I originally took these questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento poolside at the Trixie Motel (really), but I forgot to use the good microphone, so I re-recorded 'em from my home studio when I got back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8booXqUYY-Y
Accelerated Database Recovery (ADR) is a database-level feature that makes transaction rollbacks nearly instantaneous. Here's how it works.
Without ADR, when you update a row, SQL Server copies the old values into the transaction log and updates the row in-place. If you roll that transaction back, SQL Server has to fetch the old values from the transaction log, then apply them to the row in-place. The more rows you've affected, the longer your transaction will take.
Let's get a little nerdy and look at database internals. Create two tables: one with a million unique values, and one with a million identical values:
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I took 5 of your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento while hanging out in the backyard on my second gin & tonic. I, uh, might have lost my temper on the last one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TrOic3w4WE
When I see horrific code, stuff that would take a lot of manual labor to fix, I like to lob it over to an LLM like ChatGPT just to see how it does.
For example, on a call with a client, I opened up one of their slowest pieces of code to find that it was running a cursor, processing data row by row rather than working in sets. To simulate it, I've written up a few stored procedures against the Stack Overflow database:
I've already explained that no, it doesn't make your database server more reliable - and in fact, it's the exact opposite. But what about performance? The answer is going to depend on your hardware and workload, but let's work through an example. I'll take the first lab workload from the Mastering Server Tuning class and…
We've been running our annual Data Professional Salary Survey for almost a decade, and I was really curious to see what the results would hold this year. How would inflation and layoffs impact the database world? Download the raw data here and slice & dice it to see what’s important to you. Here's what I found.
Today's questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento require a little bit longer answers:
https://youtu.be/W-HKNMh8JQE
Most of the time, I love Entity Framework, and ORMs in general. These tools make it easier for companies to ship applications. Are the apps perfect? Of course not - but they're good enough to get to market, bring in revenue to pay salaries, and move a company forwards.
However, just like any tool, if you don't know how to use it, you're gonna get hurt.
For the last Office Hours of the year, I'm coming to you from Tokyo, the last stop on my 3-week tour of China and Japan. This was a big Epic Life Quest task for me, for sure, something I've wanted to do for decades. Let's bring you along and go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento:
The year is coming to a close, so it's time to look back on your favorite stuff from this year.
2024 Blog Posts with the Most Comments
My Asian vacation continues in Kyoto, the City of a Thousand Temples. They're not playing around - the town is chock full of gorgeous historic temples, and it was tough to pick a scene for today's Office Hours. Let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento:
https://youtu.be/6zpEXYeDH1Q
It's the end of the year. Everybody's coasting and looking back. Let's kick our heels up, get comfortable, and talk big picture industry stuff.
You and me, our weirdo jobs involve:
Kon'nichiwa! My vacation tour continues in Osaka, Japan, a city famous for its street food, nightlife, and host and hostess clubs. I'm usually the kinda guy who does classy dinners at 5PM and then hits the sack by 9PM at the latest, so you might wonder how I got here. The answer is that Yves planned this trip out, hahaha, so here we are. As long as we're here, let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
One of my favorite uses for AI is to ask it to explain a concept using wildly unusual points of view.
Well, we're going to be seeing various family members and friends for the holidays, and we'll get endless questions of, "So, what is it that you do?" I figured ChatGPT would be the perfect source for answers.
SQL Server Management Studio v21 added native Git support, making it easier to use source control natively inside SSMS. This feature is for developers who are already used to working with Github to manage specific object changes as they work, and who are already accustomed to Git terminologies like branches, commits, pushes, and pulls. This…
For the rest of December, I'm out vacationing in China and Japan. For this episode, I'm coming to you from the People's Park in Zhengzhou, China, which is kinda like the Chicago of China. It's in the middle of the US, bigger than people think (13 million people), and has beautiful parks.
https://youtu.be/BT9L-Qiv64c
So you're writing T-SQL code and you've decided that you want to send emails to customers, employees, or the general public. Perhaps you need to send order updates or low stock notifications.
Stop right there. You don't really wanna do that with SQL Server. Let's talk about why.
I went to LA for the opening week of Somni, a gorgeous restaurant in LA, and took your questions from the rooftop deck of the adorable Petit Ermitage hotel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MtdQkAw9a8
