Years ago, I responded privately to my brother and friend, Buck Woody (@BuckWoodyMSFT | LinkedIn) when he shared (excellent) advice about when to shrink a SQL Server database (spoiler alert: rarely). I asked Buck, “If shrinking a SQL Server database is nearly always bad, why not remove the feature from SQL Server?” (paraphrased). Buck’s response was along the lines of, “Sometimes shrinking the database is your only option.”

Originally, I misunderstood his advice to mean one should never shrink a SQL Server database. Sometimes, an otherwise inadvisable action is one’s only way out of a sticky situation. Who knew (I mean, besides Mr. Woody)?

An Aside

Another brother and friend, Frank La Vigne (@FrankDigsData | LinkedIn) used AI to generate the featured image for this post! The input for the artist was, “Rarely Say Never Movie Poster by Salvador Dali.” He was kind enough to send this compilation video of the rendering:

You can learn more about Frank’s foray into AI art from his post titled How to Generate AI Art in 5 Minutes for Free over at Frank’s World.

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