About Jeff Rush
Articles by Jeff Rush
How did I not already know this?
From time to time I come across tricks that can help make my life easier and I just have to wonder how I didn’t know about the trick sooner. This is one of those times. Tools -> Options -> Keyboard -> Query Shortcuts Being able to add commonly used query stubs as a shortcut I… Read This Article
Quick and Dirty
I recently ran across a poorly performing query that needed a quick fix. See if you can spot an issue: Show me all the records from Table1 whose UniversalID exists in Table2 but does -NOT- exist within Table3. Certainly not ideal but there is a very simple tweak that could be done to improve performance… Read This Article
The Curious Case of the Nested REPLACE()
I was writing some dynamic T-SQL earlier to build out some table updates on the fly when I came across a situation where it was failing due to the dreaded ‘String or binary data would be truncated.’ This only occurred when I was attempting to replace multiple areas with long pieces of text. After playing… Read This Article
T-SQL-Driven Workflow Engine using SQL Agent jobs
The Summary and Apology I began working on this blog post about six months ago and received a lot of really great feedback from really smart folks who know how to do word… stuff much better than I do. In trying to revise it I ended up just getting bogged down in life and it… Read This Article
T-SQL Tuesday #99 – Dealer’s Choice
This month’s T-SQL Tuesday comes to us via Aaron Bertrand (b|t) and he gave us a choice between discussing a passion we have outside of work or… it doesn’t matter. When given a choice like that, -always- go with passion. The Origin This particular passion didn’t surface until I entered Junior High/Middle School which would… Read This Article
DROP IF EXISTS for columns
This post is half “how to” and half community bragging. How To Let’s start with the basic issue. I needed to drop a fixed set of columns should they exist in my table. Since this was on SQL Server 2016 the DROP IF EXISTS syntax sprang to mind. “This will work nicely!” I thought to… Read This Article
T-SQL Tuesday #98 – Your Technical Challenges Conquered
This month’s topic comes to us via Arun Sirpal (b|t) and the goal is to share a time when I faced a technical challenge that I overcame. Allow me to take a moment to traverse the mental minefield for near misses and hard fought victories until I find just the right one to talk… Read This Article
Welcoming 2018
Welcome to 2018. A year of possibilities and hope. As 2017 fades in the rear view mirror I am going to be making a concerted effort on several fronts to ensure that this year is better than the last and paves the way for many more good years in the future. On the professional front,… Read This Article
T-SQL Tuesday #93 – Interviewing Patterns & Anti-Patterns
Interview. Just the mere mention of the word (unless followed by ‘with the Vampire’) conjures up anxiety. Not because I have gone through any particularly painful interviews, mind you, but for the most part they tend to just be an uncomfortable me talking with several people as we step through checklists. The best ones though… Read This Article