Data Dude CTP has been released

Very cool, the Data Dude CTP has been released. Data Dude is an integrated development environment for SQL Server 2005, setting on top of Visual Studio 2005 Pro or higher. First you must install MSSQL Developer or Enterprise Editions, and then stop all services before installing data dude and the redistributed SMO (previously called DMO).

Looks like someone forgot to do a clean system install test. The Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools namespace appears to not be on my system, so the integrated test project templates won't compile.

CTP6 installs the redist of SQL Server SMO, this dependency is will be removed in the final release. When installing, make sure that all application using SMO are closed, preventing the necessity for a reboot after install

Bootstrapping Test Data using Excel

Hey, here is a cool tip, for those who still are not bootstrapping there test data.

In this month's column I will show you how to use Excel for test automation storage. Even though this is aimed at developers with beginning .NET coding skills, intermediate and advanced programmers should still find the information I present here interesting and rather useful.

Test Run: Using Excel For Test Data -- MSDN Magazine, November 2006

Paramterizing queries using sp_get_query_template

Ken Henderson, my SQL hero, has an interesting post about parameterizing queries. This is useful when, for example, you want to use the text returned from the Profiler and then take out the hard coded strings - turning them into parameters for easy re-use.

The sp_get_query_template stored proc takes the text of a query as a parameter, then returns the normalized text and the parameter list as output parameters. Although it was not designed for general query normalization, this gets you as close as you currently can get to invoking SQL Server’s own code to normalize your queries.

Ken Henderson's WebLog : Normalizing query text

Michael Albert talk in Zuerich

So, Michael Albert is coming to my 'hood. Maybe I'll go and see him, and some other comrades in CH at the same time.

10 11. Zürich. Organizers are: the "WOZ", which is the only Swiss left weekly, and the "Red Factory", which is a well-known political and cultural centre in Zürich.This starts at 8 pm

Talks in Germany, Switzerland, and UK | Z