Frequently, on various SQL Server-related forums, I see people typing out the most fundamental questions, such as basic syntax of a SQL command, clearly desperate for an answer. As a forum regular, it can be frustrating to be asked to explain the difference between a block and a deadlock for the 6th time this week, when you know that a simple search against the search engine of your choice will immediately boil up the answer. What the heck is going on? Why are people taking the time to create an account on a forum, type in a long and convoluted question about how to use a WHERE clause when typing about one-fifth as much text into a search engine gives them immediate answers?

I don’t have an answer, but I have a speculation. There’s an old joke that refers to Boogle as the junior DBA, because it's the Junior DBAs job to remember how to do all the routine tasks that you don't want to keep in your head. Ask your "junior DBA" for the basic syntax to do an OUTER JOIN, and out comes an immediate answer.

However, for many inexperienced developers and DBAs, the search engine isn't a font of useful SQL Server answers. Instead, it's a giant black hole into which you pour time, and all you get back is confusion and doubt. One web site emphasizes the vital importance of Page Life Expectancy and how if it falls below 300, it's the death knell for the performance of your server. The next web site will point out what a questionable measure it is and how it depends on a whole slew of other metrics with which you're unfamiliar. These apparent contradictions aren't helpful at all, unless you happen to know which source to trust. Heck, even answers that are now "wrong" were probably right 10 years ago, and it's those answers that often still bubble to the top.

The problem for many people is that they don't need the search engine to be their junior DBA, they need it to be their senior DBA. If they lack the skills to be able to judge accurately which information thrown up by a general Internet search is reliable, then this explains why they go the longer route of typing in questions in forums and waiting for answers they are more confident they can trust.

This raises the question: is there something we can and should do about it? How do we make forums such those on SQLServerCentral act as a more coherent and reliable senior DBA? How might they do a better job of helping train people up until they can reliably use the search engine as their junior DBA?

Grant Fritchey (Guest Editor).