Adam Machanic
Adam Machanic helps companies get the most out of their SQL Server databases. He creates solid architectural foundations for high performance databases and is author of the award-winning SQL Server monitoring stored procedure, sp_WhoIsActive. Adam has contributed to numerous books on SQL Server development. A long-time Microsoft MVP for SQL Server, he speaks and trains at IT conferences across North America and Europe.
No, stored procedures are NOT bad
I recently found a rather old post from Frans Bouma's blog, "Stored procedures are bad, m'key?".Since comments are closed (he posted it almost a year ago), I have to reply here.I'll state my bottom line at the top: Stored procedures are not only not bad, they're necessary for maintaining loosely coupled, application agnostic, flexible...
Pattern-based replacement UDF
As a personal challenge, I decided to write a UDF that will work just like T-SQL's REPLACE() function, but using patterns as input.The first question: How does REPLACE() handle overlapping patterns?SELECT REPLACE('babab', 'bab', 'c')--------------------------------------------------
cab(1 row(s) affected)SELECT REPLACE('bababab', 'bab', 'c')--------------------------------------------------
cac(1 row(s) affected)It appears that SQL Server parses the input string from left to right, replacing...
Caveats of the TEXT datatype
Someone named "Krygim" posted the following question today in the microsoft.public.sqlserver.programming newsgroup: "Will defaulting a TEXT field to an empty string take up more space than defaulting it to Null when no data is entered into the field. " Before reading any further, I ask that you think for...