OK, that’s maybe overstating it a bit, but I do think that the tools that come with SQL Server are very developer friendly. Take, for instance, the SQL Profiler. I find that this is particularly useful when writing any code that accesses databases, or for diagnosing database problems.

If you’re using Hibernate (and probably other libraries as well), you can get the sql dumped out to the console that is being executing. This is very useful most of the time, but it doesn’t contain the physical SQL that is going to be executed. It generally replaces the values from prepared statements with ‘?’s.

For debugging SQL related work its often invaluable to see the exact SQL that is being performed and on what connection – this can allow you to easily identify any potential database locking problems.

Running a SQL profile trace also allows you to see how long each query is taking and allows you to identify any potential bottlenecks in your application.

I know you can do similar things in Oracle (in version 9 at least – I’ve not seen 10 yet), but they’re just not as developer friendly. I’m not knocking Oracle, I think its a fantastic database also, however I feel it is let down by its developer toolset.