T-SQL Tuesday #195 Summary 

~ SqlAsylum ~ 3 Comments

What a great collection of stories all about aging!  I really appreciated everyone take time to reply to the question.  

I’m going to do this a little differently for my summary. I will list the blogs below and provide key summary points for each.  I also created a video summary. I intend to do more of this in the future. 

You choose how you would like to consume the content, and share with me how you would prefer to see it in the future!  I intend to do a lot more video/audio work in the future. 

You will have to find my perspective on this topic in the video link. 

Rob Farley

Ageing code

Key summary: Rob talks less about specific code and how it has aged, he reminds us how important it is to understand that databases live, breath and change over time.  The queries will need to be updated and reviewed in the future.  It doesn’t mean the original query was bad; it’s just not as new as it once was, and it’s important that we review these older queries to determine whether they are still performing well.  

Hugo Kornelis 

T-SQL Tuesday 195 – Code that aged well

Key Summary: Hugo talked about code he started way back in 2013(not too long ago for some of us). He took what he could from the code, improved it, documented it, and sent it on its way.  Over the years, he had to continue providing support, but there were no real changes to the system beyond that.  That speaks to the dedication and hard work of putting time into a project to leave it better than you found it.  Investing time up front in your code and in the logic can pay off in the long run.  I’m happy I could take him for a trip down memory lane! 

Steve Jones 

Aging Code for T-SQL Tuesday #195

Key Summary: Steve shows us some old string-manipulation code he wrote a long time ago. He makes it clear that some of the functions or code we have used in the past can still do the work today. Sometimes minor changes are needed, or perhaps a more efficient approach is possible, but for the most part, it still works well!  This reminds me of a Date script I keep around and will discuss in the video version of this summary. 

Chad Callihan 

T-SQL Tuesday #195 – How Has Your Code Aged

Key Summary: Chad told a story about how a simple idea and solution he presented for an open opportunity are still useful.  It shows that even if it’s not your specific area, it’s a good idea to provide solutions, and they may last a very long time.  

Andy Brownsword

T-SQL Tuesday #195 – How Has My Code Aged?

Key Summary: I really like what Andy said at the end of his post, “It’s not enough to make it work correctly. It needs to fail correctly too”.  I think this does a really good job of summarizing aging code.  If we plan and prepare for failures better, then we will handle aging that much better. 

Deb the DBA

T-SQL Tuesday #195 – How Has Your Code Aged?

Key Summary: Deb focused on how to keep your code from becoming legacy.  I enjoyed this take on the question, which provides guidelines on how to ensure that, as it ages, it does so well and remains useful moving forward. 

Todd Kleinhans

T-SQL Tuesday #195 – You Can’t Go Home Again

Key Summary: I’m pretty sure I’ve run into Todd at some event in the past. If not, I need to!  He shares many of the same philosophies as I do: “Keep Moving forward”! Focus on what you can do right now, use documentation, best practices, and good guidelines, and push forward with what you are doing.  Focusing on the past just enough to learn from it and then move on.  Love this perspective. 

T-SQL Tuesday #195 –“How has your code aged”

~ SqlAsylum ~ 15 Comments

T-SQL Tuesday #195

I’m a little late getting this together, but that’s not entirely my fault.

For this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, I wanted to once again talk about Aging!  But not in the human sense.  I mean in the code sense. It’s a simple question that can be interpreted in many ways, and I look forward to all the ways you might see this.   

The question is.  “How has your code aged?”   

Pick a project or code script and decide if it “aged well”.  Is it still in use?  Is it functioning?  Did it do what was needed, and now it’s no longer around?   Perhaps talk about how useful it was for the time, but now it would never be needed because of AI or other aspects.  

Knowing what we have done in the past and how we have improved is very important to moving forward.  It’s also a great time to be grateful for something you created in the past, and perhaps it is still working.  Very often in this fast-paced world, we spend all of our time looking at the new project and the next big thing, and we forget to enjoy the things that created the foundation for our future.  

I hope you will join this exercise by posting on February 10th, 2026.   Please make sure to link to this original post and include the T-SQL Logo on the post.  I’ll write up the summary after Tuesday, and we have all the posts listed.  

The Silver Summit

~ SqlAsylum ~ 2 Comments

I attended a different event this weekend. It wasn’t specifically a technical event, and it wasn’t specifically NOT a technical event.   It was about something we are all facing in the future. 

Aging.  

That’s right, whether we like it or not,t we are all getting older.  For me personally, ly it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve always thought about and focused on the future. I believe in two major concepts in my life.  

Visit your Default Future. 

I’ve presented on this before. This idea comes from a book called Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success(Amazon Audible link).  I highly recommend this book; I typically re-read it every few years.  Default future means that you can meet/see someone who will be your future if you change nothing else right now.  Perhaps you are in the same roles as a family member, perhaps you do similar things to that family member. You can quickly see what you will become in 5-10 years by observing this person like you.  If you don’t like what you see in your future, you need to change it.  The book outlines steps to do so.  

Chapters. 

I see my life as a series of chapters. As we go through life, we experience big events and moments.  I don’t believe anyone has just one path that they stay on for the entirety of their life.  I believe it changes, and when you leave a path or change it, you open a new chapter.  I believe I am in Chapter 3 of my life right now, and I have no idea how many more chapters there will be.  

During the event, we heard from many participants of diverse ages and backgrounds. The items below are my key takeaways. 

  1. Keep talking to each other! Making connections, having friends, and even just having discussions are statistically proven to prolong life.  I wrote about connections recently, and that post confirmed it even more.  
  2. We have a serious problem with our Senior population right now.  Scammers are targeting them.  We need to help educate and support them in these times. Legislation is also a good idea to help address this problem.  I will personally volunteer for more events to get involved. 
  3. 90% of Seniors are now connected to the internet and using applications, just like the rest of us.  But the tech industry is not building for this Demographic.  They are not developing applications for older adults.  We need to start considering this when designing applications and building solutions.  
  4. AI can greatly help the aging population, but it is not designed for seniors to use. We can’t just provide the same tools everyone else has; we need to customize them and make this better. Several people at the event were working on solutions around this. 
  5. Your identity should not be related to your work.  Many of us in this industry devote so much of our time and lives to our jobs that they become our identity.  I plan to write a blog post soon about how to separate these items.  Think about this now, though,h as it becomes a big part of your life moving forward. 
  6. Some of the simplest things you can do to improve your life are to show Gratitude to yourself, others, and to play!  That’s right, enjoy some of life and make sure you have time for play.  

I have a lot more to share on these topics and events, but this is enough to get the discussion started. Please take a minute to start thinking of these things now.  Time is always moving, and it moves very quickly. 

Let’s do our best to LIVE with the time we have.