IT Job Search Engine

I've been working on integrating RSS feeds into a SQL Server db . Using OPENXML , you can get some powerful inputting , without to much data manipulation.  This http://www.itjobfeed.com/ grabs the feeds from a list , via DTS , scans for syntax errors  and then enters link and meta information into the db .

It would be useful to see more xml lists under certain sectors to have the same data structures.

They are inviting more companies,organisations,agencies to supply them with feeds to expand the search engine

Development

These are some basics when it comes to development on SQL Server.

Insufficient change control testing -Potentially the worst mistake to make, where developers will use a test case. Do a full TPC benchmark.

Unrealistic test environments - Provide an adequate db for the developers. One easy way is to export the production statistics into the test db

No change control procedure - In busy software companies, version control for schemas and sql code is paramount

Not enough testing instances- Thorough SQL developers often keep 4 environments, DEV for development, TEST for unit testing, QA for pre-production testing, and PROD for production. Any less and you risk missing errors

No performance tracking - With all the counters and alerts handling , there's no excuse for missing early warning signs, not to mention custom software packages

Poor security management - SQL Server offers a host of access control mechanisms. In dbs I audit, I still see obvious security holes

Non-standard external environments - This is a bad practice where every database uses different versions, inconsistent aliases and non-standard/varying file locations.