Are the posted questions getting worse?
-
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (3/28/2014)
Jeff Moden (3/28/2014)
GilaMonster (3/28/2014)
Ed Wagner (3/28/2014)
Grant - You have booth babes??? :w00t:Grant *is* the booth 'babe' 🙂
Heh... especially on kilt day. 😀
You have six months, Santa
BWAAA-HAAAA-HAAA!!! Or should I say BWOOOOO-HO-HO! 😉
Except for no glasses, the wedding ring, and the nearly hairless legs, that's pretty much what I'd look like in a kilt especially lately... it's been a cold winter and both my hair and my beard are nearly that long.
It's supposed to be in the 60's here on Monday... I'm trimming my beard back and getting a business-man's style haircut today (Saturday).
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
is it me or is steve moonlighting? 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvbMaCXXxc
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Jeff Moden (3/26/2014)
Ed Wagner (3/26/2014)
Cursors in SQL Server are pathetically slow, but in Oracle they're blazing fast.I guess I wouldn't say such a thing... I worked in Oracle for about 3 years and I have to tell you that I was able to write some set based code in Oracle that made Oracle cursors seem pretty pathetic even when compared to SQL Server.
Urban myth from when Orrible had a rule based optimiser that sucked, in the days before they bought DEC RdB. Even then it was probably nothing more than Sales Weaselry to help sales to COBOL shops
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them. -
Luis Cazares (3/27/2014)
Welcome to another fun story sponsored by our "DBAs?".Last night, about 1:30am someone decided it was a good time to disable xp_cmdshell. I'm sure that person read somewhere that disabling it was important to maintain the security of the database. The problem is that lots of our nightly processes use it to create or import text files. And the funny part is that we could easily enable it again as soon as we got to the office and we're not part of the DBA team. :w00t:
This shows that security is as important to them as data consistency provided by enforcing NOLOCK hints on every query.
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them. -
Grant Fritchey (3/27/2014)
jcrawf02 (3/27/2014)
We have a written test we use to weed out people who don't know the first thing about SQL (report writing position, not DBA stuff), it's pretty basic, but I started it after listening to you guys tell horror stories. My favorite so far is the guy who left (!) without telling me (I usually give them 20 minutes or so by themselves), and left me this nice note (and his business card!)
"John, [and no, that's not how I spell my name]
From the gist of your questions, you are looking for someone far more "bitsy-bytsy" than am I. If this is the scope of the position, it is not for me. If I can help in some other way, call."
Ha! What the heck is "bitsy-bitsy"?
A Yellow Polka Dot Bikini?
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them. -
ChrisM@Work (3/28/2014)
WayneS (3/27/2014)
Luis Cazares (3/27/2014)
How is it possible that someone writes a cursor instead of using SUM()?I'm afraid that this database is full of these pieces of
shcode and it's slower than a snail going backwards.I believe it's due to developers that know how to write basic select, insert, update, delete statements, and for everything else, it's a cursor. Because all that they know is procedural (iterative) processing, and they won't learn the set-based way of doing it.
That's like getting a sparky (electrician, UK) ...
ah - it depends, HM Navy radio/comms operators get quite huffed if you refer to an electrician as a Sparky. It's not a mistake I made twice.
Deliberately a few times, like.
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them. -
Sean Lange (3/28/2014)
dwain.c (3/28/2014)
Ville-Pekka Vahteala (3/27/2014)
Luis Cazares (3/27/2014)
How is it possible that someone writes a cursor instead of using SUM()?I'm afraid that this database is full of these pieces of
shcode and it's slower than a snail going backwards.Based on what I have to deal daily answer is easily :-):-(
This kind of things happen when programmers write t-SQL.
Here, here! Let's keep all the programmers out of SQL!
What sayeth the SQLverse?
There are more programmers around here (including me) than you realize. Gail and Lowell, Jack Corbett...not sure who else I might be missing. 😀
Perhaps I should have added a smiley or something to denote the somewhat tongue-in-cheek nature of my statement. 😛
Obviously, it was not meant to include people that actually have skills like you Sean.
My mantra: No loops! No CURSORs! No RBAR! Hoo-uh![/I]My thought question: Have you ever been told that your query runs too fast?
My advice:
INDEXing a poor-performing query is like putting sugar on cat food. Yeah, it probably tastes better but are you sure you want to eat it?
The path of least resistance can be a slippery slope. Take care that fixing your fixes of fixes doesn't snowball and end up costing you more than fixing the root cause would have in the first place.Need to UNPIVOT? Why not CROSS APPLY VALUES instead?[/url]
Since random numbers are too important to be left to chance, let's generate some![/url]
Learn to understand recursive CTEs by example.[/url]
[url url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/St -
SQLRNNR (3/28/2014)
Sean Lange (3/28/2014)
dwain.c (3/28/2014)
Ville-Pekka Vahteala (3/27/2014)
Luis Cazares (3/27/2014)
How is it possible that someone writes a cursor instead of using SUM()?I'm afraid that this database is full of these pieces of
shcode and it's slower than a snail going backwards.Based on what I have to deal daily answer is easily :-):-(
This kind of things happen when programmers write t-SQL.
Here, here! Let's keep all the programmers out of SQL!
What sayeth the SQLverse?
There are more programmers around here (including me) than you realize. Gail and Lowell, Jack Corbett...not sure who else I might be missing. 😀
Would you call yourselves programmers or developers?
I have often heard that programmers are more like code monkeys and developers have higher skills.
BWAHAHAHAHA! Oops, sorry. Normally I try to scrupulously avoid commentary about the skills of the "developers" at my company.
The fact that they actually have the gall to call them "software engineers" is a blatant insult to anyone that actually graduated with an engineering degree.
My mantra: No loops! No CURSORs! No RBAR! Hoo-uh![/I]My thought question: Have you ever been told that your query runs too fast?
My advice:
INDEXing a poor-performing query is like putting sugar on cat food. Yeah, it probably tastes better but are you sure you want to eat it?
The path of least resistance can be a slippery slope. Take care that fixing your fixes of fixes doesn't snowball and end up costing you more than fixing the root cause would have in the first place.Need to UNPIVOT? Why not CROSS APPLY VALUES instead?[/url]
Since random numbers are too important to be left to chance, let's generate some![/url]
Learn to understand recursive CTEs by example.[/url]
[url url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/St -
Ville-Pekka Vahteala (3/28/2014)
TomThomson (3/28/2014)
Ville-Pekka Vahteala (3/27/2014)
Luis Cazares (3/27/2014)
How is it possible that someone writes a cursor instead of using SUM()?I'm afraid that this database is full of these pieces of
shcode and it's slower than a snail going backwards.Based on what I have to deal daily answer is easily :-):-(
This kind of things happen when programmers write t-SQL.
It's clear that when programmers who have experience only in some badly designed language like C++ or VB will make a complete wreck of anything they try to do in SQL unless they have some decent Sql training, but tarring all programmers with that brush is narrow-minded prejudice, as is assuming that all bad SQL is written by programmers and not by the DBAs.
Oh Tom you must be judging me then 🙂
Most of my programming experience is from c++ and PHP and I have newer attended any SQL training.
Neither have I. There's training available for SQL?
My mantra: No loops! No CURSORs! No RBAR! Hoo-uh![/I]My thought question: Have you ever been told that your query runs too fast?
My advice:
INDEXing a poor-performing query is like putting sugar on cat food. Yeah, it probably tastes better but are you sure you want to eat it?
The path of least resistance can be a slippery slope. Take care that fixing your fixes of fixes doesn't snowball and end up costing you more than fixing the root cause would have in the first place.Need to UNPIVOT? Why not CROSS APPLY VALUES instead?[/url]
Since random numbers are too important to be left to chance, let's generate some![/url]
Learn to understand recursive CTEs by example.[/url]
[url url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/St -
dwain.c (3/30/2014)
The fact that they actually have the gall to call them "software engineers" is a blatant insult to anyone that actually graduated with an engineering degree.
True dat 🙂
I have the degree of "Master of Science in Engineering: computer science with minor software engineering", so I can call myself either computer scientist or software engineer. I have never used it though and probably never will. It would be an insult to actual computer scientists and software engineers 😀 I just go with BI developer instead 🙂
(my official title at my current company is Senior Business Analytics Architect, if I'm not mistaken. What's in a name?)
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP -
Koen Verbeeck (3/31/2014)
dwain.c (3/30/2014)
The fact that they actually have the gall to call them "software engineers" is a blatant insult to anyone that actually graduated with an engineering degree.
True dat 🙂
I have the degree of "Master of Science in Engineering: computer science with minor software engineering", so I can call myself either computer scientist or software engineer. I have never used it though and probably never will. It would be an insult to actual computer scientists and software engineers 😀 I just go with BI developer instead 🙂
(my official title at my current company is Senior Business Analytics Architect, if I'm not mistaken. What's in a name?)
My uni degree is "Master of Science in Systems Engineering" so that's pretty close. For a while I had the title of "Senior Engineering Systems Analyst" which I treasured. Now I'm just a project manager so I'm not expected to know anything technical about computers, judging by some of the project managers I've seen recruited out of business schools.
My mantra: No loops! No CURSORs! No RBAR! Hoo-uh![/I]My thought question: Have you ever been told that your query runs too fast?
My advice:
INDEXing a poor-performing query is like putting sugar on cat food. Yeah, it probably tastes better but are you sure you want to eat it?
The path of least resistance can be a slippery slope. Take care that fixing your fixes of fixes doesn't snowball and end up costing you more than fixing the root cause would have in the first place.Need to UNPIVOT? Why not CROSS APPLY VALUES instead?[/url]
Since random numbers are too important to be left to chance, let's generate some![/url]
Learn to understand recursive CTEs by example.[/url]
[url url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/St -
dwain.c (3/31/2014)
Now I'm just a project manager so I'm not expected to know anything technical about computers, judging by some of the project managers I've seen recruited out of business schools.A decent project manager should be able to manage projects of any kind, be it IT or construction or ...
It does help to be a bit technical so you can at least verify if the estimates are a bit realistic 🙂
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP -
Revenant (3/28/2014)
TomThomson (3/28/2014)
Ville-Pekka Vahteala (3/28/2014)
TomThomson (3/28/2014)
Ville-Pekka Vahteala (3/27/2014)
Luis Cazares (3/27/2014)
How is it possible that someone writes a cursor instead of using SUM()?I'm afraid that this database is full of these pieces of
shcode and it's slower than a snail going backwards.Based on what I have to deal daily answer is easily :-):-(
This kind of things happen when programmers write t-SQL.
It's clear that when programmers who have experience only in some badly designed language like C++ or VB will make a complete wreck of anything they try to do in SQL unless they have some decent Sql training, but tarring all programmers with that brush is narrow-minded prejudice, as is assuming that all bad SQL is written by programmers and not by the DBAs.
Oh Tom you must be judging me then 🙂
Most of my programming experience is from c++ and PHP and I have newer attended any SQL training.
I see that I managed to lose some words - I'll leave it as an excercise to the reader to work out what should have come between "VB" and "will".
As to judging people, I prefered not to judge except by experience of the person being judged; of course when recruiting I had to judge by resumés and interviews, but I no longer have to do that.
If I may note, there is a dearth of developers who are able to work in both a (mostly) procedural language and at the same time in SQL, in both above the average.
In, say, C# you have to think 'What will I accomplish in this line of code and what will I do in the next one?'; in SQL it is 'What I can do to this column/these columns to get it done in one step?'.
If you can do it, you might be classified as MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). Unfortunately, I am not kidding on this one - the pharmaceutical complex is always looking for new customers and psychiatrists are, at least in NA, willing if not enthusiastic accomplices.
However, I am always lookin'. 😉
Have a great weekend.
Way back in the early 90's many of us FoxPro programmers waited with bated breath for MS' release of a product which included a crude implementation of SQL. After all, why scan and process a table one row at a time for a report or whatever when you could process the whole lot in one go? When it arrived it was a game-changer. Same result, far less code, far better performance. If you are looking for folks who can do both procedural and set-based, look no further than programmers who cut their teeth on FoxPro and VFP - and grabbed SQL with both hands when it appeared.
“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail ShawFor fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden -
andrew gothard (3/29/2014)
ChrisM@Work (3/28/2014)
WayneS (3/27/2014)
Luis Cazares (3/27/2014)
How is it possible that someone writes a cursor instead of using SUM()?I'm afraid that this database is full of these pieces of
shcode and it's slower than a snail going backwards.I believe it's due to developers that know how to write basic select, insert, update, delete statements, and for everything else, it's a cursor. Because all that they know is procedural (iterative) processing, and they won't learn the set-based way of doing it.
That's like getting a sparky (electrician, UK) ...
ah - it depends, HM Navy radio/comms operators get quite huffed if you refer to an electrician as a Sparky. It's not a mistake I made twice.
Deliberately a few times, like.
Chuckle - the armed forces take great delight in nicknames and this post reminds me of one of my dad's Nimrod crewmates, a signaller, who was tagged "Simple Sig" because he wasn't the sharpest tool in the block 😀
“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail ShawFor fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden -
ChrisM@Work (3/31/2014)
Way back in the early 90's many of us FoxPro programmers waited with bated breath for MS' release of a product which included a crude implementation of SQL. After all, why scan and process a table one row at a time for a report or whatever when you could process the whole lot in one go? When it arrived it was a game-changer. Same result, far less code, far better performance. If you are looking for folks who can do both procedural and set-based, look no further than programmers who cut their teeth on FoxPro and VFP - and grabbed SQL with both hands when it appeared.OK, but what about the Foxpro programmers who stayed stuck in the "row-by-row" mentality?
Which, I think just described my previous employer...
:hehe:
Viewing 15 posts - 43,516 through 43,530 (of 66,712 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply