Sql – What’s the best SQL Server setup for a development environment

development-environmentsql-server-2005sql-server-2008visual-studio-2008

We are a small team using Visual Studio 2008 for development and SQL Server 2008 Standard in the production servers. We are seting up a new development lab and I am wondering about SQL Server versions/editions and configuration.

Visual Studio 2008 comes with a development license of SQL Server 2005, but since we are only targetting SQL Server 2008 for production, I don't think we should install SQL Server 2005 on the development workstations, right? Would you suggest skipping the bundled SQL Server 2005 and going for, perhaps, SQL Server 2008 Developer? Or maybe SQL Server 2008 Express?

Or would you recommend not installing SQL Server on the development workstations at all, and doing all the development against a development server?

Your views are appreciated. Thanks!

Best Answer

I'm going to recommend SQL Server 2008 Express like many of the other answers. I will, however, make two additional recommendations:

Keep your DB schema in version control. Developers will be able to easily apply schema updates from other developers to the development databases running on their machine. This would be done whenever you check out your source code to make sure you're running the latest DB schema.
Add a staging server in the middle that exactly mirrors your production environment.

Syntax:

ALTER TABLE {TABLENAME} 
ADD {COLUMNNAME} {TYPE} {NULL|NOT NULL} 
CONSTRAINT {CONSTRAINT_NAME} DEFAULT {DEFAULT_VALUE}
WITH VALUES

Example:

ALTER TABLE SomeTable
        ADD SomeCol Bit NULL --Or NOT NULL.
 CONSTRAINT D_SomeTable_SomeCol --When Omitted a Default-Constraint Name is autogenerated.
    DEFAULT (0)--Optional Default-Constraint.
WITH VALUES --Add if Column is Nullable and you want the Default Value for Existing Records.

Notes:

Optional Constraint Name:
If you leave out CONSTRAINT D_SomeTable_SomeCol then SQL Server will autogenerate
a Default-Contraint with a funny Name like: DF__SomeTa__SomeC__4FB7FEF6

Optional With-Values Statement:
The WITH VALUES is only needed when your Column is Nullable
and you want the Default Value used for Existing Records.
If your Column is NOT NULL, then it will automatically use the Default Value
for all Existing Records, whether you specify WITH VALUES or not.

How Inserts work with a Default-Constraint:
If you insert a Record into SomeTable and do not Specify SomeCol's value, then it will Default to 0.
If you insert a Record and Specify SomeCol's value as NULL (and your column allows nulls),
then the Default-Constraint will not be used and NULL will be inserted as the Value.

Notes were based on everyone's great feedback below.
Special Thanks to:
@Yatrix, @WalterStabosz, @YahooSerious, and @StackMan for their Comments.

Visual-studio – Visual Studio setup problem – ‘A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.’

A colleague found this MS auto-uninstall tool which has successfully uninstalled VS2008 for me and saved me hours of work!!

Hopefully this might be useful to others. Doesn't speak highly of MS's faith in their usual VS maintenance tools that they have to provide this as well!

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Sql – Add a column with a default value to an existing table in SQL Server

Syntax:

Example:

Notes:

Visual-studio – Visual Studio setup problem – ‘A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.’

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