I followed the migration of a row through SQL Server 2025, from the first write to the grave. The log gets there before the table. The delete does not erase anything. And when the table is empty and the ghost is gone, the statistics histogram still names the row in full.
Ten AI Phrases We Use Too Often
In 2013 I wrote a small list of phrases developers used too often. Twelve years later, here are ten AI phrases I hear every week, and what each one means.
What AI Thinks a DBA Does All Day
What AI thinks a DBA does all day is a calm, orderly Tuesday, so I wrote down my actual Tuesday. Its day has six items, and mine has thirteen.
AI Bubble: I Hope It Pops
The AI bubble I hope will pop is the one I am standing inside, holding a book, a consulting practice, and the survival instincts of a cartoon coyote who has just looked down.
Your Second Skill Was Never a Parachute
Your second skill was never a parachute, and the proof is six hundred years old. The Black Death wage laws of 1349 explain what is happening to our careers.
Beautiful T-SQL Queries: Three Could Delete the Company
AI writes genuinely beautiful T-SQL queries. Aligned, aliased, commented. Beautiful has never meant correct, and three of these could delete the company.
AI Slop: The Literary Offenses of the Machine
How to spot AI slop, discovered the hard way, over four hundred entries, in a dressing gown, at two in the morning, and ending in a place I did not care for.