Great Things

I got an interesting message from my daughter recently. She's doing graduate studies in Belgium at KU Leuven. Her field is literature and linguistics, and as part of that, she has to analyze various writings. While visiting with her last month, she mentioned that her professor was using R (R Language) and giving them scripts to run to look at language usage. The other day she texted that her R script wasn't running and could she get some help. She was a little intimidated to ask the professor why the script didn't run on her laptop, when she saw it running in class on the professor's machine. I had some time, so we started a screen-sharing session on WhatsApp, which is amazing. Side note, I can't believe I can talk with my daughter and watch her work on her computer in real time, with a few clicks of a button. Read the rest of Helping an English Student with R

This week is the annual PASS Data Community Summit. I'm up in Seattle, getting ready for the event. This year the conference is a little shorter. Rather than being gone from home for an entire week, I arrived last night and am heading home on Thursday. That's nice as I've been gone a lot this year. My fun with travel post looked at my travel and contained a lot of blue lines in 2026. In any case, I'm both glad this is a short week and sad that it's not the big event of the past, where I spent five or six days visiting with friends and making new acquaintances at the PASS Summit. I loved the promotions we did years ago for PASS, which funded a SQL Server Central party on opening night. I miss the chaos of a full convention center, navigating the crowds in search of a session, getting distracted chatting with others, and the fun atmosphere in Seattle, running into fellow data professionals throughout the streets. Read the rest of PASS Summit Week

LGTM (Looks Good to Me) is a song about AI and the way it's been used, or maybe how a lot of people think it's been used in organizations. I find it catchy, creative, and most importantly, funny. I chuckled out loud. As a side note, this is one of the amazing things I see with technology these days. There are many incredibly creative people who do amazing things. Even the music/reels/etc. that I don't like can showcase amazing talent. I love it and hope more people can succeed at using their creativity to make a living. Read the rest of I Love Creative People

Over the last year, I've been asked numerous times when I'm plan to retire. This question has come from friends, parents of kids I coach, coworkers at Redgate, and even from Microsoft. A few people have asked about my succession plans for leaving, as I have a public site at SQL Server Central, and the charity in SQL Saturday. I'd like those things to continue past my time, so I am thinking about how to do that. I already have plans to hand off T-SQL Tuesday next year to someone else. No worries, I'm not retiring soon. I have quite a few years left, though a decade is probably the outer range for me. Read the rest of Planning for Change

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter. I ran across this quote recently and it struck me that it's expresses a thought I've had for some time. Instant, magical success isn't often what it appears. Anyone that seems to have sprung up overnight with success in anything has often spent a lot of time getting ready. Read the rest of Great Things

Hugo, I have many memories of moments we spent together, discussing data, career, life, and family. Three stand out, though not more or less important than any others. I can remember asking you a question years ago at a SQL Saturday about the way an execution plan was formed, and you patiently explaining to me something I didn't understand. I'm sure I asked some poor questions, but you tried your best to help me understand some aspect of why the plan was shaped a certain way. Your patience and exuberance still stand out in my mind today. You trying help me understand something that I'm not sure I understand to this day. Read the rest of A Heavy Heart.

I was updating the SQL Server build lists the other day. I typically get a notification from Microsoft when new builds are released. This is something that happens every month as a new CU appears. For the older versions (2022, 2019, 2017), we get a CU every other month. Since SQL Server 2025 is new, we're getting a CU a month, which will slow down next year. However, I've also seen this for the versions: Read the rest of AI Is Improving Security

It's a weird time in the job market. Companies are hiring, and I see friends and colleagues starting new positions. At the same time, I have had many more friends reach out, saying they are struggling to find employment, and job searches are dragging on for months. I sympathize, and it certainly seems that lots of people are trying to hold onto their existing positions. Whether you're looking for a new position or trying to create security in your existing role, it pays to be aware of the impression you leave in the world. Is it a positive one? Do others want to work with you? Or maybe you find people gravitate towards others. Are they impressed with your output? Satisfied? Left wanting? Read the rest of Making an Impression

I wonder if any of you have ever tried this. When faced with a problem, think of a solution using whatever comes to mind. For most of us in the data space, this is a SQL-based solution, hopefully a set-based on for MSSQL. For Oracle, you might approach things differently. In any case, solve the problem. Then force yourself to imagine that you weren't allowed to implement the first idea for some reason. No funding, no time, whatever the reason, you can't implement it. Maybe it's your team hates your ideas and just won't approve the PR. Read the rest of Choose the Second One

"This is the worst version of the car you'll own." That was a quote from the delivery manager when my wife and I picked up our Lucid Gravity. He said that since the car is very software-oriented and gets regular over-the-air updates, the car keeps improving. The car I bought is the worst version because it keeps getting better. His experience over the last few years with the company has shown that the changes made in software result in customers growing more fond of their vehicles. Or maybe they're less annoyed by things that don't work well. Ah, the joys of software.   Read the rest of Today's AI