Oracle SQL's MEDIAN Function

Article #3 in my ongoing series covering SQL statistic functions in Oracle Database is now up. The topic is the median:

MEDIAN: For When You Really Don't Mean It

Median is useful in typifying a data set when the data might be skewed, or in the presence of extreme outliers. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau reports <em>median household income</em> for states and counties so as paint a picture unskewed by the presence of, say, Bill Gates or Warren Buffet living just down the street.

To learn more, hit the link.

STDDEV: Standing Sentinel on Your Data

I've just posted the second in what I plan to be a series of articles on statistical functions built into Oracle SQL. This second article is on standard deviation. Here's the link:

STDDEV: Standing Sentinel on Your Data

The first article was on the mean, and you can read that here:

AVG: What Does it Mean?

Enjoy!

You've Got Framing!

Article #5 in my series on window functions in SQL Server 2012 is about the framing clause:

You've Got Framing!

Use the framing clause to cumpute running sums, moving averages, and to otherwise answer questions by examining data as it moves through a frame of reference.

Pulling Rank for the Boss

Here's an article showing how to attack business questions involving words or
phrases such as "topmost" or "bottommost",  "top N" or "bottom N", or that are
otherwise answerable by ranking the rows in a result set according to some
criteria that you can apply to one or more columns of data.

Pulling Rank for the Boss

This article is fourth on my series covering the use of window functions in SQL Server 2012. This article goes over the use of ROW_NUMBER, RANK, and DENSE_RANK. They are similar functions providing slightly different ways to rank rows in a result set with respect to one another.

Enjoy!

Interlude: The Mechanics of Window Functions and How They Work

I interrupt my business-case-driven series on window functions with a detailed look at how they are evaluated in the context of a SELECT statement. It's important to understand when these useful functions are executed, because that when has implications on the data available.

Link to the article:

Interlude: The Mechanics of Window Functions and How They Work

The idea hit me on a long car drive. I hope you enjoy the result.

H.G. Wells and SQL: Travelling in the Second Dimension

I should have spent yesterday working on a troublesome project at the office, but I badly needed a break from working on weekends and felt on a roll with my series on window functions, so I took the day and had some "fun" with LAG and LEAD. Here is a link to my results:

H.G. Wells and SQL: Travelling in the Second Dimension

This is the second in my series of articles on window functions in SQL Server 2012.

Detail in the Aggregate

Work has been crazy. It's taken me longer than expected. But finally, I've written and published the first of what I plan to be a series of articles on SQL window functions:

Detail in the Aggregate

This series is motivated by the increased support for window functions that we can look forward to in SQL Server 2012.