I wandered into Red-Gate's offices the other day. I'd been momentarily distracted by the autumn leaves, thoughtfully strewn in the hallway, probably by a visiting Zen Buddhist to remind us of the sacred presence of nature even in the Techno Park. Suddenly I was waylaid by the charming Tanya to take part in a bug-hunt. Somehow, I found myself in a room full of laptop computers and various developers, varying from the apprehensive (SQL Prompt developers) to the smug (ex-SQL Prompt developers).

We were giving SQL Prompt 3.8 RC a quick post-test check-over before the new release candidate version of 3.8 is made available.

The interesting thing about SQL Prompt 3.8 is that it is now using the code reformatter from SQL Refactor to lay out your SQL code nicely. This means that, for the first time, even the users of Query Analyser now are able to reformat code automatically. There are twenty different aspects of the reformatting you can change, in four different sections. It is a very clever piece of code that, for me, doubles the usefulness of SQL Prompt.

There are one or two other features that are less immediately exciting than the reformatting code but would make a big difference to me. One of these is the 'tooltips'-style help for whatever object that you rest the mouse pointer over. Wonderful. I'm an old-stager with IDEs. I like a nice clean window free from clutter, and loathe having to do incessant clicking in the Object Explorer to do stuff. This is why I reach for such old-time practices such as sp_help and sp_helptext. If SQL Prompt can help me keep the clutter away so I can remind myself of the parameters to a routine or the columns of a table without having to scrub what's in the results window, then that's a real bonus. Other new features include Object Definitions, and a new Summary view in the schema panel.

SQL Prompt is one of those product that one can love, but never unconditionally. There are so many different ways that Database Developers work and it is presumptuous to think that it could ever be possible to construct a tool that would satisfy everyone. Perhaps that is why Microsoft have taken so long to provide intellisense for SQL Server developers. It has to work for such a diverse community of users. However, by diversifying into managing layout, and providing all these nice features for even those unfortunates still wrestling with SQL Server 2000, SQL Prompt's future is assured, whatever arrives by way of intellisense in SQL Server 2008.

I found SQL Prompt irritating to use until I adopted the obvious strategy of setting the triggering to manual (this should have been the default). Now you just invoke SQL Prompt just at the point of those senior moments when you forget the name of the table, routine or parameter. Another handy feature is being able to limit the trigger words that invoke SQL Prompt. There is a bit of work to do in order to make it function the way you want but the effort is worth it.

The Red-Gate bug-hunts are good fun for the huunters, but painful for the application developers whose work is being treated the same way as a fox by foxhunters. TallyHo! I sat next to a developer who had the habit of throwing his head back and laughing in an evil gloating way every time he found a bug. I gazed in wonderment at the restraint shown by SQL Prompt's developers whose welcoming smiles only glazed over momentarily in response to the baying pack of bug-hunters, as they pushed firmly into the back of their minds any homicidal instincts towards the gleeful bug-hunters 'on the scent'. There is a certain etiquette in conveying the news to a hard-working developer that there is a tiny flaw in his masterpiece. Perhaps the pretence of amazed surprise that such a thing could possibly exist. Certainly, gloating or reproach is not an option, especially if, one day, the roles will be reversed, and it is your software being torn to shreds.

Fortunately, the software worked surprisingly well for a beta (it is now a release candidate as I write - 2nd April 2008) so we're getting it ahead of schedule. I, for one, will be pestering the developers over what I see as its little quirks and irritations, but I'm fully expecting people on The Red-Gate Product Forumpraising the very features I find irritating. That's all part of the software development process, I suppose