General blogs

Listing 10 GENERAL blogs in the SQL category

SQL Exercises using Wise Owl's Music Database

Posted by Andrew Gould on 05 June 2024

We've recently published a new set of exercises for our SQL training courses based on a database of concert tours. This blog provides a brief tour of the database and how to tackle the exercises on our website, even if you haven't attended a Wise Owl training course.

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SQL > General

5 horrible SQL jokes and one puzzle

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 15 November 2023

Sam has a terrible sense of humour which is all too often inflicted on his delegates. Sadly, with this blog, on website viewers too ...

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SQL > General

Which dialects of SQL should Wise Owl teach next?

Posted by Andy Brown on 01 February 2023

Although we currently just train in T-SQL for SQL Server, there are many other dialects of this database language: such as MySql and PL/SQL, for example. Which ones would you like Wise Owl to run courses in?

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SQL > General

New SQL Language Features for SQL Server 2022

Posted by Andy Brown on 06 October 2022

SQL Server 2022 is now in preview (you can download an evaluation copy). It includes new functions to split strings, trim text and truncate dates, among other things.

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SQL > General

Practise SQL in your browser with SQL Fiddle

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 30 June 2021

Some of our poor delegates don't have the luxury of a home computer to install SQL on (even worse some have made bad life choices and picked a Mac). The good news is that you can still practise your SQL skills in your web browser, using the impressive SQL Fiddle site. Have no fear, SQL Fiddle is here, a browser based sandbox to bring you cheer!

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SQL > General

What to do when you get red squiggly lines in SSMS and no Intellisense

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 28 April 2021

Normally when SQL Server Management Studio underlines words with what Microsoft call "red squigglies" it's because you haven't refreshed your local cache, but it could also be because of a recent bug - here's how to get round this!

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SQL > General

Azure Data Studio versus SQL Server Management Studio

Posted by Andy Brown on 16 January 2020

Microsoft have brought out a new SQL editor called Azure Data Studio, to act as a substitute for SQL Server Management Studio, but this owl cannot see any justification for its existence!

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SQL > General

Wise Owl have found one SQL structure which slows down code more than any other

Posted by Andy Brown on 13 May 2019

If your stored procedures or SQL queries are running slowly, don't bother looking at correlated subqueries, cursors, functions or any of the other usual culprits. There's one SQL syntax which Wise Owl have found to be an order of magnitude worse than any other, as this blog shows.

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SQL > General

Wise Owl coding standards for T-SQL (the SQL dialect used in SQL Server)

Posted by Andy Brown on 01 February 2017

A blog setting out an approach to coding in SQL to ensure consistently high standards across your organisation.

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SQL > General

How to use the FOR XML keywords in SQL to concatenate ids

Posted by Andy Brown on 27 September 2016

If you want to group items in a SQL query, showing a comma-delimited list of ids for each, generating an XML file is not the obvious place to start - but it should be.