SQL Server: Data Transformation Hero
Nov 21, 2006I’ve previously made clear my reasoning for using SQLite when the situation presents itself. I still believe quick, simple databases are the way to go in most situations. But sometimes I marvel at the way SQL Server can just jump through hoops when it comes to data transformations.
Now don’t get me wrong. SQL Server isn’t the quickest database out there, and it has it’s warts. But in the business world many times you’ll get data from clients in wide array of forms. SQL Server makes lives less stressful in these situations. It can take text delimited, excel, a cornucopia of databases and other such oddities (FoxPro, for instance) and import them all into a SQL Server DB fairly effortlessly.
So you get your data, pump it into SQL Server, massage it into something you can actually use, and then pump it all back out into a unified format. The import/export wizard may be one of the few useful wizards I’ve ever encountered.
Now if I could only get around the fact that it’s Windows only, takes up a ridiculous amount of resources, and can bring modest development machines to a crawl … well, best to be thankful for what it is at least.
If you haven’t given SQL Server a try it will at the very least be a useful learning experience. Then you can go back to using MySQL, Postgres, and SQLite.