Jeff Smith Blog

Random Thoughts & Cartesian Products with Microsoft SQL Server

Data belongs in your tables – not in your code

Fri Feb 10, 2006 by Jeff Smith in t-sql, techniques, efficiency, database-design

Here’s my advice of the day: Try your best to store all of the data relating to your database in the tables. Sounds pretty obvious, I know, but you might be surprised just how much data in your application is not in your tables, where it belongs, but rather nestled away in your code. Read more →

You've got to have an IDENTITY!

Fri Nov 4, 2005 by Jeff Smith in techniques, humor, database-design, links

Here's kind of a funny/scary thread over at the DailyWTF: http://www.thedailywtf.com/forums/49490/ShowPost.aspx see also: Discussing VB and/or MS Access in a Programming Forum Top 10 Things I Hate About SQL Server SQLTeam Dating Advice ! Read more →

Delete Duplicates And Resolve Foreign Key References in SQL

Thu Oct 7, 2004 by Jeff Smith in t-sql, database-design, joins-relations

Here's a scenario many of us have encountered: You inherit a database. TableX has an identity column "ID" set up as the primary key, and contains many duplicates. It is clear a better, natural primary key is a combination of columns A and B. Read more →