Posts filed under: development

Code Quality – A Modernist Visualization

Recently Danny sent me a copy of Clean Code – A Handbook of Agile Software Craftmanship in pdf form (Or you can get your very own physical copy ).   It is a lengthy read and I have not finished...
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SQL Server Crib Sheets

SQL Server Central has a free ebook that compiles high level crib sheets that cover a few different areas.  These give a good overview of high level concepts and tools that may interest you. It covers a range of areas...
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Development meets Soft Skills @ Kal X 2016

I attended the Kalamazoo X conference again this year.  This is a small one day technology conference held in Kalamazoo, MI each year that covers soft skills and business acumen. For the price and quality of speakers I highly recommend people...
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HIPPA (PII/PHI) and software development

We try to build most of our products on sanitized data. However, some things rely on some set of customer data in order to make sure our data extract, transform, and load processes are working for a particular site. Since...
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Scripting Data from a table doesn’t have to be like pulling teeth

Sometimes you need to be able to script the data out of a table and it is easier than you might think. I commonly do this when I am generating automated tests or updating a product with system data for...
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Improving Project Success

There was a timely editorial posted this morning on SQL Server Central by Steve Jones concerning Successful Projects. In his post he references Kevin Whitson’s The Kevin Test for Successful Projects, which was inspired by The Rands Test   and Joel...
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SQL Server 2016 coming June 1st (And free stuff)

Microsoft announced the June 1st release date for SQL Server 2016.   Read to the end for other big news. From the breakdown of Features Supported for SQL 2016 by Edition there are a couple new features that will make their...
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SQL Server Discontinued Features and Items marked for deprecation

With each version of SQL server certain items are discontinued (removed) from that release, and other items are marked for deprecation (removal in a future release). Earlier this week I saw some code that I remembered being on the deprecation...
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Project Pre-Kickoff Road-mapping and Scoping

In many cases we are asked to give a WAG for a project very early in the process. This typically includes the assumptions  we made, and any known risks. As the project progresses it is usually necessary to spend some...
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Hiding the SSRS Breadcrumbs from Users

It is common when rolling out our SSRS prototypes that different onsite users will be interacting with the different products. This means that typically different user groups will be setup and certain groups will have access to specific SSRS report folders...
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