Tales Of Brave Ulysses

Well, everybody else is linking to the story. I might as well join the crowd. The Onion | Mom Finds Out About Blog

What’s New and Cool in SQL Server “Yukon”:

Big thing #1:

T-SQL has several new data types, including native handling for XML data, which is covered in the following section. There are also three new data-related data types: Date, Time and UtcDateTime. These new types have better accuracy and range than their existing counterparts, DateTime and SmallDateTime. (You can say that again) They are also special implementations of .NET user-defined data types, and thus they have several special properties and methods that allow you to get portions of the date or time and even convert it to a string using a user-specified format.

T-SQL now has the ability to pivot and unpivot data. No more dynamic T-SQL or overly complex SELECT statements � now you can use this new ability to create crosstabulated data results. These two SELECT statements will give the same results, but obviously, the second is a lot easier to write, especially if we are dealing with more than three pivoted output columns.
SELECT ProductID, ProductName,
WHEN 1996 THEN Extended ELSE 0 END">SUM AS [1996],
WHEN 1997 THEN Extended ELSE 0 END">SUM AS [1997],
WHEN 1998 THEN Extended ELSE 0 END">SUM AS [1998]
FROM vwOrderDetails
GROUP BY ProductID, ProductName

SELECT * FROM vwOrderDetails
PIVOT (SUM FOR TheYear IN ([1996], [1997], [1998])) AS PVT

Donald Rumsfeld arrived on Guam last night, part of a Far East tour of US military bases. Secretary Rumsfeld will visit bases today and have lunch with the troops.

Last night the Civil Service Commission voted to reinstate people laid off by the hospital earlier this year. I guess nobody can be laid off from GovGuam after all, the CSC will just put them back on the payroll.