Cursors are evil, Cursors are good

Sure, sure if you’re even slightly older than me “the cursor” was the unruly kid at school with a slightly skewed moral compass.  However, if you’re like me, and reside on the Great Timeline of Technology, being privy to both the old world and the new information-age world you realize that the cursor can mean a few other things.

Today we’re talking about t-sql.

Ok let me out myself here.  I hate cursors.  A lot.

They are bloated, complex, and use entirely too much code.  I get it though.  Sometimes you just have to use them.  And I get it that they have their place.  Cool.  However here is handy way to NOT have to use one though.

Read more

Check it and check it again

The other day at work an interesting thing happened. I was working with someone else in order to troubleshoot an issue with pushing some software out to our live site. I had tested my changes on my local machine as well as the test site. So we rolled things out to an external test site so our client could preview the changes before we flipped the final switch.  Drum roll please …

Ask .. “What Changed?

Ok this may sound simple.  It may seem like a “duh” moment.  However, we’ve all been there, right?  The pressure is freakin’ ON .. and .. either your an employee or heaven-forbid, an even more expendable consultant, but the world is on fire, mountains are crumbling and folks ranting.  The guy or gal who last worked on this project is either dead and buried or “called in sick” and you’re lost.  Everyone is looking at you saying, “Well it worked when I went home last night!  How soon can we get this {insert name of the unbelievably important application here} back up and running??!?!”

 

Read more