Back in the early and mid-1990s, I wrote regular magazine columns in Database Programming & Design and later in DBMS magazine. The gimmick I used to attract reader responses was to end each column with a SQL programming puzzle. Ten years later, those two magazines were consolidated into Intelligent Enterprise. My SQL puzzles moved to

some smaller publications and then finally faded away. Today, I throw out a puzzle or two on the www.dbazine.com Web site and other places on the Internet rather than in print media. Over the years, college students had all kinds of programming contests that used the procedural language du jour—C, Pascal, then Java and C++ today. There is not much for database programmers to test themselves against, except my little puzzle book.

Back in the early and mid-1990s, I wrote regular magazine columns inDatabase Programming & Design and later in DBMS magazine. Thegimmick I used to attract reader responses was to end each columnwith a SQL programming puzzle. Ten years later, those two magazineswere consolidated into Intelligent Enterprise. My SQL puzzles moved tosome smaller publications and then finally faded away. Today, I throwout a puzzle or two on the www.dbazine.com Web site and otherplaces on the Internet rather than in print media.Over the years, college students had all kinds of programmingcontests that used the procedural language du jour—C, Pascal, thenJava and C++ today. There is not much for database programmers totest themselves against, except my little puzzle book.