SQLBits

I was at SQLBits in reading yesterday.

I had a superb time and enjoyed the sessions very much.

The best session by far was "Dave's top 10 sql keywords" from Dave McMahon of NxtGenUG Apart from his wig and sunglasses, I was most impressed with SET LANGUAGE 'British' for solving Datetime conversion errors when working with the uk date format (the hacky way).

The second best session was by Simon Sabin and his SQL Server Myths. His session was very deep, and I have gained a much better insight into SQL Server from it.

The 3rd best session was the transactiony one, and my favourite snippet from that one, is SET IMPLICIT_TRANSACTIONS ON. This allows you to modify data within a transaction, so if you knacker up a where clause you can easily rollback.

I had a great day, and it was a superb event, and i will definately go to the next one.

I only have one real complaint for the speakers. When demonstrating code, set your font to Lucida Console, with the size being around 14. It makes a big difference to the audience.