I see a lot of questions on data related Reddit forums and data science groups on LinkedIn about how to get started with SQL. Certainly these people mean that they want to learn the SQL language. I don’t think you can do that long term without setting up a home lab. You need your own place to experiment beyond what you can do in an online tutorial where you’re typing into a web browser, for example.
SQL Server 2012 extended support ends July 12, 2022 – no more patches of any kind. I hope this isn’t news to you, and you’re already planning a migration. Before I post about a migration plan, though, I’d like to take a look back at SQL Server 2012.
What were some new features in SQL Server 2012, and how did they fare over time?
SQL Server Developers are under-rated.
That’s right! I’m a DBA and I said, “SQL Developers are under-rated.” Dedicated SQL Developers help I.T. teams by writing efficient code that gets just the data that is needed and in a way that leverages how the database engine works best. How do you ensure you’re doing great work for your company and building code that will stand the test of time?
I’m so glad you asked!
SQL Server concatenation methods have been enhanced in modern versions of SQL Server. SQL Server 2012 introduced the CONCAT() function. In SQL Server 2017 we get CONCAT_WS().
A common usage of concatenation, or joining column values together in a string, is combining a FirstName and LastName column into a FullName column. Another common usage might be for creating an address column that pulls together building number, street, city and zip code.