Microsoft hopes it has a sequel better than Godfather Part II: SQL Server 2019 previewed

SQL Server 2019, the latest version of Microsoft’s venerable database, dropped into preview at the company’s Orlando shindig, Ignite, this week. Head honcho of SQL Server at Redmond, Asad Khan, was keen to mention the 25 years of history behind the database software. Graybeards who remember the first 16-bit OS/2 release of the …

[rcx141]

Hope it's better than Highlander 2 at least

Great big tubs of lard speedy !

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hope it's better than Highlander 2 at least

What is this highlander 2 you speak off? There can be only 1 (or a tv series and its 1 film, there is no 2nd film for that either no matter what you say)

[Andy Mac]

Re: Hope it's better than Highlander 2 at least

The Highlander TV show probably cost me my A-Levels thanks to being on at 11pm. It hasn’t aged that well, but I loved it.

And so, SQL Server. Yay. Nothing really exciting for us developers. I wonder if the intern has finished updating Master Data Services. Still need Silverlight? Oh dear.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Hope it's better than Highlander 2 at least

I wish they'd just stop pronouncing it "Sequel" [that was an IBM market-speak-ism that totally confused me the first time I heard it, because I couldn't find information on "sequel server" - sequel to what? That was back in the OS/2 days, before Windows 3]

it's worse when that pronunciation propagates into the open source world. It's not "My Sequel" nor "PG Sequel". idiots...

[blunderbus]

Managed Instances

"Azure SQL Managed Instances arriving this week and providing nearly complete compatibility with the on-premises version of SQL Server"

Just so long as you don't want to take the backup off of MI and restore it anywhere else you'll be golden.

[Anonymous Coward]

"nearly complete"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Managed Instances

"Just so long as you don't want to take the backup off of MI and restore it anywhere else you'll be golden."

It clearly states that is fully supported.

[JMiles]

UTF-8

I used SQL server a couple of years ago and couldn’t believe that UTF8 was missing! Glad they finally sorted that.

The management UI always felt really nice but the cryptic error messages when something didn’t work were always a challenfe. Error codes wihich wouldn’t return many results on Google (or Bing) and descriptions that seemed to assume users are intimately familiar with the SQL Server source code. To be honest, it’s very un-Microsoft because things like .NET always provided me with helpful error messages or codes I could look up on MSDN.

My life has been much easier since moving to Postgres which I use exclusively now for SQL work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: UTF-8

I'm not a big fan of SQL Server but I have to say I've never had any difficulty with error messages. They always seemed clear to me. On the odd occasion when I looked for details in a search engine I always found pages of results.

[glococo]

Will it be possible to make remote backups ?

How that feature is still missing ?

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Nothing is better than Godfather Part II

[Aladdin Sane]

The Empire Strikes Back is.

[Dick Kennedy]

You realise Godfather II was brilliant, right? It was Godfather III that sucked the big one. If you're going to try to be clever with movie references, at least get them right.

[Christian Berger]

It somehow reminds me of the dusk of the minicomputer age

Back then you could suddenly get microcomputer versions of minicomputers, just to keep the enviroment going. You could get a PDP on a small board, sometimes even integrated into a terminal. (like the VT78 or the DEC Professional)

I mean Microsoft SQL-Server has lost the "default" status it had in the late 1990s early 2000s to MySQL. It's now used a lot for "legacy" stuff. Few people start new projects with MS-SQL as the features of MySQL are more than enough for 99% of all usecases.

Also parts of Microsoft seem to want to exit the "professional" market (see Windows 10) it is obvious to see why some parts want to have an exit strategy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It somehow reminds me of the dusk of the minicomputer age

I don't know where you work but in my experience in the banking and medical areas lots of new projects start on MS SQL Server. I haven't heard of many using MySQL unless it was a prototype knocked up by a student.

I quite like MySQL but it seems to occupy more of the small business/hobby area although I have seen it used in one or two large businesses for niche stuff.

[chasil]

sqlite is the most popular database

SQLite is the most popular, bar none. They just got window functions last month, too.

https://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html

Every Android device

Every iPhone and iOS device

Every Mac

Every Windows10 machine

Every Firefox, Chrome, and Safari web browser

Every instance of Skype

Every instance of iTunes

Every Dropbox client

Every TurboTax and QuickBooks

PHP and Python

Most television sets and set-top cable boxes

Most automotive multimedia systems

[Ross 12]

Re: sqlite is the most popular database

It's definitely available everywhere, but it's not a server, and therefore has completely different usage cases. You wouldn't use it to power a busy multi-user system, just as you wouldn't stuff a copy of Oracle into a set-top box to store some user settings.

[Juillen 1]

Re: It somehow reminds me of the dusk of the minicomputer age

MS-SQL is still a big hitter. MySQL lacks a lot of features you want in Enterprise; PostgreSQL fills that gap a lot better.

Generally for commercial work, SQL Server or Oracle are the big go-to engines for relational still (with Oracle taking a bit of a hit).

PostgreSQL has a fair appearance in the Healthcare sector, but not usually for primary clinical systems (most of those still go with MS).

[Scott 53]

One nice (and overdue) feature

SQL Sever 2017 error

Msg 8152, Level 16, State 14, Line 8

String or binary data would be truncated.

SQL Server 2019 (trace flag 460 enabled)

Msg 2628, Level 16, State 1, Line 8

String or binary data would be truncated in table 'Sandbox.dbo.Customer', column 'CustomerName'. Truncated value: 'Is this th'.