SQLintersection: Slides, demos, and a quick recap

This week, while some of you have been in Seattle, I've been at #SQLintersection in Las Vegas. Here are the slide decks and sample code from my three sessions:
- Dating Responsibly in SQL Server
- T-SQL : Bad Habits and Best Practices
- SQL Server 2016 / 2017 T-SQL Changes
I had fun at this event, as I always do. The SQLskills crew is as good as they come, and they always make speakers feel welcome and involved. While this event overlapped almost entirely with PASS Summit, and our team was split across the two events, we still got to hear all the great announcements coming out around SQL Server (namely SQL Operations Management Studio and more adaptive query tuning features coming out in vNext). Ours were delivered by the Energizer Bunny herself, Jes Borland (@grrl_geek).
Stepping back, I'm not a big fan of Las Vegas, in general, as I find it to be way over the top in terms of just about everything. One positive effect is that, at this show, the "early" sessions are at 10 AM. For me, that gives an extra chunk of time to prepare / rehearse that otherwise would have to happen the night before (while tired). In case it isn't obvious, I will keep coming back to speak here, for a wide variety of reasons.
Speaking aside, I do have fun here even without ever really leaving the confines of the hotel - restaurants like Craftsteak and Morimoto are right inside the MGM Grand, and of course if gambling is your thing you don't really have to go outside either. We did go out for one meal at Diablo's Cantina, which is right across the street, and I hopped out to the strip for a few minutes to get some personalized M & Ms for my kids.
It looks like I'm going to miss the March show in Orlando, as it happens the same week as the Can-Am Cup - our annual curling bonspiel in Powassan, Ontario. It would be pretty tough to make both.

Aaron (@AaronBertrand) is a Data Platform MVP with industry experience dating back to Classic ASP and SQL Server 6.5. He is editor-in-chief of the performance-related blog, SQLPerformance.com. Aaron's blog focuses on T-SQL bad habits and best practices, as well as coverage of updates and new features in Plan Explorer, SentryOne, and SQL Server.
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