Fall is now in full swing, and after a relatively quiet several months my speaking schedule is about to jump into fairly-packed mode.  Following is a list of where I'll be headed over the next couple of months: Next week I'm really excited to be teaching a day of the Microsoft Certified Master: Microsoft SQL server 2008 program's beta ...

Here is a CLR UDF I prepared for ''Inside SQL Server 2005: Query Tuning and Optimization'' (which I modified from the version presented in ''Inside SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying'' to better support NULLs):[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlFunction(IsDeterministic=true)]public static SqlString sqlsig(SqlString querystring){ return ...

I was just reviewing my calendar for the next several weeks and noticed that the Toronto SQLTeach conference is now only a few weeks away.  This conference includes quite a few interesting SQL Server-related sessions, on topics ranging from best practices, to performance, to some of the new SQL Server 2008 features. I fully expect ...

Originally posted here.  Back again!  Fourth post for the month of February, making this my best posting month in, well, months.  Expect this trend to continue.After yesterday's post on running sums and the evils of cursors, Jamie Thompson came up with a faster solution than the curser I posted.  Alas, Jamie's ...

Originally posted here. I spoke at the Beantown .NET user group meeting tonight, on the topic of SQLCLR in SQL Server 2005. One of the questions that came up during the UDT part of the talk was whether static properties are supported.  Unfortunately, I had no answer at the time--it's not something I'd yet thought to ...

Originally posted here.  Widely acknowledged SQL Server expert Kimberly Tripp has weighed in on SQL Server 2005's CLR integration in her latest blog post. Tripp presents a fairly balanced reaction to the new technology, and stresses a message I've been trying to hit home recently: Given the massive number of changes coming in SQL Server ...

Originally posted here.  More fun CLR conversation, this time from SQL advocate Joe Celko. Surprise, surprise, Celko is not a big fan of CLR integration. Yet he mentions the SQL/PSM standard as a better alternative, even though it has the same issues he mentions. But it's open-source (Java-based), so it must be better. Right? Why is ...

Originally posted here.  Tom Rizzo pointed out the other day that he and James Hamilton were featured on The .NET Show, discussing SQL Server 2005. This was a pretty interesting show, and I recommend that readers interested in SQL 2005 features watch the webcast. However, one quote in particular annoyed me. From James Hamilton, ...