January 6, 2011 at 7:32 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (1/5/2011)
Just came back from a neighborhood meeting. Now I need to go shovel more manure around in my barn.Does anyone have a fork I can stick in my eye?
IANA....Manure-spreader (?), but I'm pretty sure if you get it in your eye, you're doing it wrong.
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How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
January 6, 2011 at 7:45 am
WayneS (1/6/2011)
Brandie Tarvin (1/5/2011)
EDIT: Of course, the only reason I want to go on this cruise is for the Cruisiness of it (Caymans, Mexico). The SQL Classes themselves are for beginners.I just received an email from SQLCruise this morning. It seems that people were complaining about this, so they have re-worked the schedule (with input from those already signed up). It might be worth your time now.
I just received another email from Idera with the same rules and the same link to the rules that says it has to be posted to Facebook. You say your email was from SQLCruise itself?
January 6, 2011 at 8:13 am
Jeff Moden (1/5/2011)
Brandie Tarvin (1/5/2011)
Any programming language that complains when I try to use 0 as a divisor should be taken off the market and all its install disks buried in the Mariana Trench! EDIT: That includes C++.@=)
What value would you like returned if 0 is the divisor? Personally, I'd prefer a NULL to be returned instead of an error (which also means I think the guy doing all the badmouthing on the link that Gus provided should probably reexamine his position on the subject;-) ). Here's some typical code I use to do such a thing in T-SQL...
SELECT @SomeNumber/NULLIF(@SomeOtherNumber,0)
The fact that you can do exactly that kind of thing is the reason he says it a non-issue. Error messages are there to give you options.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
January 6, 2011 at 9:11 am
Koen (da-zero) (1/5/2011)
GSquared (1/5/2011)
Brandie Tarvin (1/5/2011)
Any programming language that complains when I try to use 0 as a divisor should be taken off the market and all its install disks buried in the Mariana Trench! EDIT: That includes C++.@=)
What? There are programming languages that don't include the revolutionary new concept of "nullity" created by a self-proclaimed mathematical genius in the UK?
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/12/nullity_the_nonsense_number_1.php
I have never understood the fuzz about "division by zero". It is possible, it just doesn't return a normal number. If you plot the function 1/x with a program like maple, you can clearly see that the asymptotic value is infinity. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hyperbola_one_over_x.svg)
Last time I plotted it, I saw two asymptotes, not one, with two different (unreal/infinite) limits. And of course that applies only for division in the reals (or the rationals) - working with complex numbers instead you get a rather bigger number of apparent limits.
Tom
January 6, 2011 at 9:27 am
Brandie Tarvin (1/6/2011)
WayneS (1/6/2011)
Brandie Tarvin (1/5/2011)
EDIT: Of course, the only reason I want to go on this cruise is for the Cruisiness of it (Caymans, Mexico). The SQL Classes themselves are for beginners.I just received an email from SQLCruise this morning. It seems that people were complaining about this, so they have re-worked the schedule (with input from those already signed up). It might be worth your time now.
I just received another email from Idera with the same rules and the same link to the rules that says it has to be posted to Facebook. You say your email was from SQLCruise itself?
Yes. Not the facebook issue, but cruisers wanting more senior level classes, so they've modified the schedule[/url]. Looks pretty interesting now - I'd like to go!
Edit: added hyperlink to the new schedule.
Edit2: on that site, you can subscribe via email to site changes. Very few emails are sent out, so it's not going to overload your inbox. (You can also subscribe via RSS if you so desire.)
Edit3: I'd like to go, if for no other reason than to hang out with Brent and Tim for a week and to be able to absorb anything I could out of them!
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
January 6, 2011 at 9:43 am
WayneS (1/6/2011)
Brandie Tarvin (1/6/2011)
WayneS (1/6/2011)
Brandie Tarvin (1/5/2011)
EDIT: Of course, the only reason I want to go on this cruise is for the Cruisiness of it (Caymans, Mexico). The SQL Classes themselves are for beginners.I just received an email from SQLCruise this morning. It seems that people were complaining about this, so they have re-worked the schedule (with input from those already signed up). It might be worth your time now.
I just received another email from Idera with the same rules and the same link to the rules that says it has to be posted to Facebook. You say your email was from SQLCruise itself?
Yes. Not the facebook issue, but cruisers wanting more senior level classes, so they've modified the schedule[/url]. Looks pretty interesting now - I'd like to go!
Edit: added hyperlink to the new schedule.
Edit2: on that site, you can subscribe via email to site changes. Very few emails are sent out, so it's not going to overload your inbox. (You can also subscribe via RSS if you so desire.)
Edit3: I'd like to go, if for no other reason than to hang out with Brent and Tim for a week and to be able to absorb anything I could out of them!
I dunno, wanting to "absorb anything" from Brent may be asking for a rash...
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
January 6, 2011 at 10:11 am
jcrawf02 (1/6/2011)
WayneS (1/6/2011)
Edit3: I'd like to go, if for no other reason than to hang out with Brent and Tim for a week and to be able to absorb anything I could out of them!I dunno, wanting to "absorb anything" from Brent may be asking for a rash...
I hear you, but hey, he did make it to MCM. He's gotta have some knowledge that can be absorbed!
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
January 6, 2011 at 11:14 am
WayneS (1/6/2011)
jcrawf02 (1/6/2011)
WayneS (1/6/2011)
Edit3: I'd like to go, if for no other reason than to hang out with Brent and Tim for a week and to be able to absorb anything I could out of them!I dunno, wanting to "absorb anything" from Brent may be asking for a rash...
I hear you, but hey, he did make it to MCM. He's gotta have some knowledge that can be absorbed!
Just don't do it in the hot tub then, I guess? :w00t:
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
For better assistance in answering your questions[/url] | Forum Netiquette
For index/tuning help, follow these directions.[/url] |Tally Tables[/url]
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January 6, 2011 at 11:42 am
WayneS (1/6/2011)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (1/5/2011)
Just came back from a neighborhood meeting. Now I need to go shovel more manure around in my barn.So, is the second part related to the first part?
Felt like it
January 6, 2011 at 11:48 am
Jeff Moden (1/5/2011)
GSquared (1/5/2011)
What? There are programming languages that don't include the revolutionary new concept of "nullity" created by a self-proclaimed mathematical genius in the UK?
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/12/nullity_the_nonsense_number_1.php
It's amazing how quickly people who believe the world to be flat will badmouth those proposing it to be otherwise. 😉
The fact that Anderson's axiom system works in itself doesn't achieve anything except to produce a new and unproductive abstract algebra. The ability to deal with zero divide by throwing a catchable error or by delivery an out-of-domain result has been with us for half a century or more, despite Anderson's claim to have done something new. I think that what MarkC. C-C says about the reports about his "nullity" is justified. Perhaps what Anderson himself said originally was a bit less of a ridiculous overblown claim, or maybe not since certainly he seemed to support the ridiculous claim (he repeats it all on his commefrcial presentation for his company, http://www.angletechnology.com/events/investorday/Dr%20James%20Anderson%20Transreal%20presentation.pdf) once someone (whether that someone was himself or another) had made it for him.
The things Anderson eventually claimed were (i) having a NULL inside the real domain (he claimed this to be a new invention by him, which was blatantly false), (ii) that this solved all the problems of division by zero which exist in any programmes anywhere, (iii) that none of the existing concepts (SQL "Null", IEEE "NaN", domain theoretic semantics "Bottom", abstract data types "Null", Object Oriented "Null" and/or "Nil" and/or "undefined") do any of what it does or help solve any of the problems that it solves because none of them provides a value in the domain (but bottom is in whatever domain it is bottom of and in all superdomains of that domain; SQL NULL - according to ANSI and ISO - is in whichever domain it is typed as being in; so his claim (i) and this ridiculous statement show that he is thoroughly ignorant of the subject).
He also claimed to have an axiomatisation that didn't destroy most of classical arithmetic and analysis, and he was teaching this warped arithmetc to kids, despite the fact that with his axioms none of classical real analysis (the mathematics used by engineers to keep planes in the air, build bridges that carry traffic instead of falling down, build power generation and transmission systems, and achieve pretty much everything else in our modern technologies) would work and ordinary integer arithmetic wouldn't work either (bang goes the binomial theorem, the fundamental theorem, and a lot more).
Everything this guy claimed was new was actually old hat - very old hat - even attempts to fit the non-number in as a number without throwing away the whole of classical mathematics, all of which failed miserably (including this new attempt - the difference between Anderson and earlier writers seems to be that he hasn't the brains to see that his attempt failed just as miserably as all the previous ones).
The Perspex machine may be a bit more real - maybe.
Some of his other work was very good, but the Nullity stuff and some of the Perspex stuff suggests to me that he may be a few pence sort of a shilling in the sanity department.
Tom
January 6, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Tom, in a conceptual way I sort of get the fact that zero divided by any other (real) number equals zero. But logically, I don't know why we can not divide by zero, but it's perfectly OK to take zero and divide another number into it? So 1/0 is not allowed, but 0/1 = 0. I suppose I have trouble with it since you can't really divide anything into zero - isn't that just as problematic as it's opposite?
My guess is that math is designed to work with quantities. Since zero is not really a quantity, it creates paradoxes. (Zero is odd anyway, it wasn't discovered until much later in our math history. I don't believe the Ancient Greeks used it. It's idea came circa 500 A.D.?)
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
January 6, 2011 at 12:30 pm
mtillman-921105 (1/6/2011)
Tom, in a conceptual way I sort of get the fact that zero divided by any other (real) number equals zero. But logically, I don't know why we can not divide by zero, but it's perfectly OK to take zero and divide another number into it? So 1/0 is not allowed, but 0/1 = 0. I suppose I have trouble with it since you can't really divide anything into zero - isn't that just as problematic as it's opposite?
Well, division is really just taking a set number of pieces of the same item, and then determining how large is each set. So, with a set of nothing, each component of that piece is also nothing. The verbal issue with it is: I have one pie, and I want no portions of the pie. How large is each portion? This leaves both the original pie in place, untouched, and an uncountable number of portions.
Hm, that may have confused you more than helped. I'll wait for Tom if it did. 😀
My guess is that math is designed to work with quantities. Since zero is not really a quantity, it creates paradoxes. (Zero is odd anyway, it wasn't discovered until much later in our math history. I don't believe the Ancient Greeks used it. It's idea came circa 500 A.D.?)
Zero was really just a placeholder, since spaces were a pain and the Arabs started using a simple dot to hold the place in larger numbers. No, I don't remember the year. 🙂
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
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January 6, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Craig Farrell (1/6/2011)
mtillman-921105 (1/6/2011)
My guess is that math is designed to work with quantities. Since zero is not really a quantity, it creates paradoxes. (Zero is odd anyway, it wasn't discovered until much later in our math history. I don't believe the Ancient Greeks used it. It's idea came circa 500 A.D.?)Zero was really just a placeholder, since spaces were a pain and the Arabs started using a simple dot to hold the place in larger numbers. No, I don't remember the year. 🙂
The Zero was invented B.C.E. not in C.E. The Arabs get attribution, but they aren't the only culture to have invented the Zero. Here's an interesting link: http://www.mediatinker.com/blog/archives/008821.html
FYI: I love the pie reference. It makes perfect sense to me. I don't know if that's good or bad. @=)
January 6, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Craig Farrell (1/6/2011)Zero was really just a placeholder, since spaces were a pain and the Arabs started using a simple dot to hold the place in larger numbers. No, I don't remember the year. 🙂
Zero, the way that we're discussing it, is more than just a placeholder - it means nothing. Spaces used to be used as placeholders, but, to me, that's not the same as the concept of "nothing."
With the pie example, 0/x is like saying, "I don't have a pie, but how many slices of it do I have?"
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
January 6, 2011 at 12:50 pm
mtillman-921105 (1/6/2011)
Zero, the way that we're discussing it, is more than just a placeholder - it means nothing. Spaces used to be used as placeholders, but, to me, that's not the same as the concept of "nothing."
I'll bow out on that because I have almost no idea on the mathmatical history of how, when, and why zero was used.
With the pie example, 0/x is like saying, "I don't have a pie, but how many slices of it do I have?"
See, that's not what it actually means though. 0/x is actually: I have zero pies. If I take my pies and divide them into x piles, how many pies are in each pile? The answer is still zero.
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
For better assistance in answering your questions[/url] | Forum Netiquette
For index/tuning help, follow these directions.[/url] |Tally Tables[/url]
Twitter: @AnyWayDBA
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