No one knows everything. Ask any senior level person in IT and they’ll tell you that they spend plenty of time looking things up. Frequently I’ll just do a web search, but, at least in the case of MS SQL Server, Books on Line is one of my top choices. It’s not always perfect, but it’s certainly a good place to start.

So here’s what I’d like you to do. Look up at least 10 of the following in BOL. Try to pick ones you don’t know, or at least don’t know well.

• What are the permissions required for OpenQuery?
• What command should you be using in new development instead of RAISERROR?
• How many expressions can be included in the SELECT list?
• Look at the example for the query hint MAXRECURSION.
• Review the syntax for creating a login.
• Is the text data type supported by the OUTPUT clause? Are there any restrictions if it is?
• What is a generic term to return the identity column in the SELECT list?
• What permissions are required to alter an ASYMMETRIC KEY?
• What does DBCC OPENTRAN do?
• Look at the example for using a CTE with an UPDATE.
• What type of lock is taken on the table when running sp_estimate_data_compression_savings?
• What is a DATABASE SCOPED CONFIGURATION?
• What are the data types for the different outputs of sp_help?
• When using COVERT to convert to a datetime data type what does the style 126 return?
• When you run sp_updatestats what happens with disabled indexes?