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August RTM for Microsoft SQL Server 2008
By Doug Holland (Intel) (88 posts) on July 22, 2008 at 10:19 am
Darryl K. Taft has an interesting article on eWeek detailing Microsoft's plans to ship SQL Server 2008 next month. You can read the article here.
Without a doubt one of the single most interesting changes in SQL Server 2008 is the addition of IntelliSense to SQL Server Management Studio, especially given the fact that SQL Server 2008 SSMS is able to manage SQL Server 2005 databases. As such many developers and DBA's alike will be able to gain benefit from this new release before their production database servers are migrated to the new release.
With the addition of IntelliSense to the SSMS text editor comes other features that have been available within Visual Studio for some time, such as the collapsible code regions (also shown above). With IntelliSense in SSMS you'll see T-SQL syntax as well as variables that you declare earlier within the script and like IntelliSense in other languages, you'll also be assisted with the expected parameters for system functions and stored procedures.
Writing T-SQL will never quite be the same again...
Categories: Software Engineering
Comments (10) 
By Alek Davis on July 22nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I wonder how Microsoft's IntelliSense compares with Red Gate's SQL Prompt (which also provides IntelliSense). SQL Prompt is simply awsome, and I'm afraid Microsft will both offer something inferior and at the same time kill an insentive for Red Gate to continue with the product.
By Doug Holland (Intel) on July 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Without a doubt Alek you raise a valid concern...
I would assume that Microsoft is providing the core functionality within this release while it might be that SQL Prompt, and others, will provide more advanced features for some time. SQL Server SMSS does allow you to disable the IntelliSense provided by Microsoft and so you should be able to continue using newer versions of SQL Prompt assuming that Red Gate believes there is enough market for the time being.
Generally though I believe it is the right move for Microsoft to add this into SMSS although it does highlight the risk anyone takes with creating addins for Microsoft products in that once you have a consistent following for your addin there is substantial motivation for Microsoft to provide the same functionality within the core product.
By Database Management on July 22nd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Technorati Search for: databaseswrote an interesting post today on Here’s a quick excerpt Darryl K. Taft has an interesting article on eWeek detailing Microsoft’s plans to ship SQL Server 2008 next month. You can read the article here. Without a doubt one of the single most
By Theo Spears on July 23rd, 2008 at 4:35 am
As Alek suggested, here at Red Gate we have been taking a look at the IntelliSense in SQL Server 2008. It looks like many DBAs and SQL developers will find it useful, but SQL Prompt will still provide a significant productivity boost over using the built-in features. We have no plans to stop SQL Prompt development.
Whilst SSMS2008 can connect to and manage SQL Server 2005 databases at the moment it looks like it will only provide IntelliSense when you are connected to SQL Server 2008. (There is a Connect entry at http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.....kID=341872 talking about this.) For people working in a mixed environment it looks like third party tools will still be the best way to have IntelliSense everywhere.
By Doug Holland (Intel) on July 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Hi Theo,
Thanks for the great information here...
We'll have to see what changes have been made in SQL Server 2008 between the final RC build and the RTM build once it is released, that said however I do imagine that there will be many advanced features in Red Gates tools that will not be found within the base product. I've not used SQL Prompt but will likely take a look at it soon.
Regards,
Doug
By Alek Davis on July 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Doug,
If you spend moderate time doing SQL development, I would whole-heartedly recommend SQL Prompt. Besides IntelliSense, it offers such niceties as ability to view metadata definitions on mouse-roll (e.g. you roll mouse over the name of a stored procedure, or a table, etc, you use in a script, and it pops up the definition of this stored procedure; it's so awesome). The only problem (from my perspective) is that licensing sceme is on a per user basis, so I cannot install SQL Prompt (at least, I don't know how) on a terminal server which we use to access all of the production and preproduction environments. Since I use SQL more for troubleshooting production issues than development, and I can't use SQL Prompt for troubleshooting, I feel like I'm wasting the license. I wish the licensing sceme were more comprehensive (like if it were possible to have a machine license so that we could install SQL Prompt on a terminal server).
Alek
By Theo Spears on July 24th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Alek,
Great to hear you are finding SQL Prompt so useful. I'm sorry about the licensing issues - if you drop me an email (theo.spears@red-gate.com) with details of your environment and how you would like to be able to use SQL Prompt I will look into whether there is a way to make it work.
Theo
By Alek Davis on July 24th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Okay, Theo. Will do.
By Carl on August 1st, 2008 at 6:50 am
I tried the RedGate intellisense solution a few years back, and I was a little disappointed that when I aliased a table or subquery, the columns didn't come up as I typed. This would have been the single biggest keystroke/time saver in my tsql programming effort. I wonder if SSMS 2008 will allow this.
For example, typing:
SELECT
*
FROM
CorporateEmployeeStatusHistorySelectableValues c
JOIN
SelectableValuesHierarchy s
ON c. -- At this point in typing, all columns in CorporateEmployeeStatusHistorySelectableValues should come up, but with an alias, it wouldn't.
Code regions will be a fantastic addition, I'm looking forward to it.
By Theo Spears on August 4th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Hello Carl
At least in the release candidate, SSMS2008 has support for table aliases and subqueries. SQL Prompt has supported these since around version 3.0 - if you haven't used it for a few years you might be pleasantly surprised by the most recent version.