Invitation for T-SQL Tuesday #003: Relationships

It’s time for the third of Adam Machanic’s T-SQL Tuesdays, and this time, I’m the host. The first one, last December was on the topic of date/time, and the second was on Puzzling Situations. Check them both out, along with the round-ups that Adam wrote about them. Lots of great topics, which is starting to make me anticipate the content that comes out on the second Tuesday of each month.

As an early volunteer to host, I have been given the honour of being the first person chosen to host one. I’d like to claim that this implies some sort of special relationship between myself and the SQL community as a whole, but it’s actually just a “first-in, best dressed” policy – although the ‘best dressed’ analogy is lost on me.

Theme

Valentine’s Day is coming up. Hopefully I don’t need to tell you that it’s on February 14th, but if you’ve read this far into the post then perhaps you’re involved with databases for some reason and may need reminding. Shopping centres around the world have signs up reminding us to buy flowers for our loved ones, but I know many people in IT circles who don’t tend to go to such places, lurking in dark corners of houses until all hours of the night, surviving on pizza. Hopefully this theme will not only prompt some interesting posts, but also prompt people to go out and invest in the meaningful relationships in their own lives. Actually, if you don’t know that Valentine’s Day is February 14th, I’m guessing you don’t have anyone in your life worth buying for. 😉

For me, Valentine’s Day is only three days after my wedding anniversary, so I can’t forget either – as if I would.

So the theme for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday is Relationships.

There are a massive number of options you could go with for this theme. You could talk about Foreign Keys in the relational world. You could wax lyrical about the benefits of attribute relationships in cube design. You could write a poem for your loved one, apologising for all those hours spent in front of a Management Studio window, trying to tune a query, rather than tuning your guitar to serenade her.

Other ideas include: Relationships between Devs & DBAs, Clients & Vendors, Entities, data types, concepts (eg: Report Model & Cube), and more… if you’re struggling to think of something, drop me a line (twitter, Msgr, email, whatever – a list of contact options is over on the left) and I can help.

But so long as you can loosely tie your post to both the theme and some aspect of SQL Server, that’s fine. Be creative, informative, reflective, and hopefully relevant.

Rules

Please note that the time zone for this Tuesday is UTC. For me, that means between 10:30am Tuesday and 10:30am Wednesday. For you, it might mean some time on Monday afternoon to some time on Tuesday afternoon. If you’re lucky (read ‘English’), then you can publish your post any time on Tuesday. It’s about when it’s published though, not when you write it. I encourage you to write your post in advance, in case you’re busy on the day.

So the rules are:

• Your post must go live after 00:00:00 UTC on Tuesday, February 9, 2010, but before 00:00:00 UTC on Wednesday, February 10, 2010
• Your post must link back to this one, and it’s recommended that you clearly identify the post as a T-SQL Tuesday post
• You are responsible for ensuring that a trackback or comment appears here so that I can find the posts

Follow the rules, and your post will be included in the roundup to be posted on a day or two later. Don’t follow the rules, and it won’t show up there. Simple as that!

Twitter

Follow the event on Twitter by watching for the #TSQL2sDay hash tag. (The ‘2’ refers to the fact that it’s the second Tuesday of the month, and nothing to do with the pronunciation of the word, which is more like “Choose-day” where I come from.)

Additional Notes

Please make sure you put a link in your post to this one, and post a comment here if the trackback doesn’t appear. I normally moderate comments to my blog (to avoid spam), but may consider changing that policy for 24 hours next week. I have noticed people trying to take part, but failing to make sure that a trackback/comment has appeared. So please check this.

Please check the time zone. It’s something that we’re used to here in Australia, but I know a few people missed out last month not realising that the event had shifted to UTC.

Let Adam Machanic know if you want to host. You can contact him in a variety of ways, as he mentioned last time. To host, you must have participated in two previous T-SQL Tuesday events, and your blog must have had at least one post a month for the prior six months. Let him know you’re keen even if you don’t meet these criteria, as I believe there’s a list, and you might be able to get those blog posts sorted before your turn is up. When I volunteered to host, I hadn’t participated in any yet…

If you want to host but don’t have the faintest clue on what topic to use, ask Adam for some ideas. I’ve suggested a few to him, and I think he’s putting a list together to maintain the longevity of all this. Similarly, let him know if you have some ideas – you might suggest something that catches people’s imagination like never before.

Feel free to contact Adam or myself if you have any comments or ideas for all this. I’ll probably refer you to Adam if it’s a general thing, or happily do my best to answer you if it’s about this month’s event in particular.

Have lots of fun! I look forward to reading your posts!

Edited: The round-up is at http://msmvps.com/blogs/robfarley/archive/2010/02/13/t-sql-tuesday-003-relationships-the-round-up.aspx