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| | | Aging Software This editorial was originally published on Oct 7, 2015. It is being republished as Steve is on vacation. I wrote The Age of Software awhile back and noted that supporting previous versions of software isn't necessarily a good use of resources for development teams. I especially think this is true of SQL Server. But does that mean we should abandon aging software platforms? It's a tough question. I've certainly talked about the case for upgrading, and the reasons why you might not. For any particular instance, however, I think that each of you has to make the case about whether the software works, or it doesn't. If it works, then it seems many of us will live with the old software and keep it running. As late as a few years ago I knew a company running SQL 6.5 with a piece of software built in 1996 and last patched in 2001. However this software ran a building key card system, and there wasn't a good case to be made for upgrading. For a software developer, however, when you look at aging pieces of software, even those that customers may pay for support on, is it worth maintaining skills and support? If you don't have staff turnover, then perhaps. If you don't, I do think that it might be time to let the product die. I'm torn on the way we deal with software in our world. On one hand, I'd like to see customers given source code for end of life platforms in order to support themselves if they wish. On the other, I understand the IP concerns, and business case to let software die. Ultimately I'm mostly OK with the current way most vendors support software. If it works for a decade and support ends, I can continue to use it. Until it doesn't work, and then I am glad that most vendors have an upgrade for me. Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.comJoin the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums |
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| | | | | Evgeny Garaev from SQLServerCentral.com The R Services installation package is not included in the MS SQL Server installation package. When you install MS SQL Server with R Services the installer actually download the package from the Internet. More » |
| | Press Release from Redgate Redgate has been acknowledged as a representative vendor in the Gartner 2018 Market Guide for Data Masking. For Gartner’s insights, analysis and recommendations on data masking you can get your complimentary copy of the report from Redgate. More » |
| | Additional Articles from SimpleTalk Even when creating games, your code has access to environment variables and document files. In this article, Lance Talbert shows how to access files to convince the player that maybe the game knows more than it should. More » |
| | Press Release from Redgate Join the FACC DFW for a night of innovation and European-American networking across industries. We invite you to a discussion with experts from Braumiller Law Group and Redgate Software UK to help answer your questions and learn about GDPR in copious capacities. (Use code REDGATE for member rate.) More » |
| | Aaron Nelson from SQLServerCentral Blogs Have you ever wanted to export an entire SQL Server database to Excel file? Yeah, me neither. Until yesterday, when... More » |
| | Klaus Aschenbrenner from SQLServerCentral Blogs (Be sure to checkout the FREE SQLpassion Performance Tuning Training Plan - you get a weekly email packed with all the... More » |
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| | | Today's Question (by Steve Jones): I have this code: DECLARE @cust TABLE ( CustomerID INT NOT NULL INDEX custidx CLUSTERED , CustomerName VARCHAR(100) INDEX custnameidx NONCLUSTERED); INSERT @cust SELECT c.CustomerKey, c.CustomerName FROM dbo.Customer AS c; What happens when I run this? |
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| Yesterday's Question of the Day |
| Yesterday's Question (by Steve Jones): I have this string in R: > phone <- "(555) 867-5309" I want to extract out the phone number without the area code. In the US, the first three digits are the area code and the last seven are the main phone number. Which of these does this in R?
Answer: > substring(phone,7,15) Explanation: In R, the substring() function will extract out a string. The string is 1 based, so the first character is a "(". The 7th character is the "8" that starts the phone number. We then give the ending position, not the length. This means 15 is used. Ref: Substring - click here » Discuss this question and answer on the forums |
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| Database Pros Who Need Your Help |
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