[moron4hire]

The GO statement is an artifact of SQL Server Management Studio. It's not an actual T-SQL construct. So if you are executing scripts in an automated way (like a continuous deployment scenario), you have to have some way to manually split up the batches.

[Amezarak]

GO is also recognized by sqlcmd, so you're (potentially) still good with automation. I did actually run the above script in SSMS, but I ran most of the ones at my old job automated.

[mistermann]

You wouldn't perchance know a good online resource for recommendations on automating SQL Server deployments would you? Yes, you can google and piece things together, but I've yet to find a well written fairly comprehensive resource. (As the author notes, one would think perhaps MS would provide such documentation, but afaik they don't.)

[moron4hire]

It's all on MSDN, somewhere. TFA was incorrect that there isn't documentation available on SQL Server and T-SQL, but it's incredibly well documented, it's just MSDN's typical terrible discoverability.