Give us easier to read execution plansMichelle Ufford (@SQLFool) recently asked for help pinpointing the most expensive node(s) in a complicated execution plan.  Mladen Prajdic (@MladenPrajdic) has a useful workaround; he coded up a quick query to parse the showplan XML and order results by cost descending.  The Connect item that would ...

Light helping this week.  I am busy closing out a few projects (or at least chapters within projects) in preparation for PASS next week. ======================================== #506453 : Lock escalation no longer kicks in for INSERTs in SQL Server 2008 Adam found a nasty lock escalation bug in SQL Server 2008.  This one ...

I've been fairly distracted this past week with my ''Bad habits to kick'' series, so apologies for being so late with the Connect digest.  I stumbled upon a few pretty interesting items from the past two weeks; I hope you find them interesting as well. #498082 : Allow direct usage of scalar functions in RAISERROR() It has bugged me that in ...