Are the posted questions getting worse?

  • Ed Wagner (9/24/2016)


    Are any Threadizens going to SQL Saturday Pittsburgh next Saturday, 10/1/2016?

    The session are published at http://www.sqlsaturday.com/545/EventHome.aspx.

    If anyone's interested, Jeff and I are doing a pre-con the day before.

    This chapter puts on a really nice event all the way around. It's at the Pittsburgh Technical Institute, which is a great facility. The "Wanna Be A DBA" track is back again this year and has been quite popular with Accidental DBAs and students. There are six other tracks, so there's plenty of variety.

    More than a couple Threadizens are giving presentations. Personally, I'm hoping to meet some people from SSC I haven't met before.

    Not I. I keep wanting to go, but timing doesn't work. Traveling 10/4-10/12 with a day at home, so couldn't add more.

  • Luis Cazares (9/23/2016)


    Someone needs a course on how to write basic DML. Or maybe I'm just grumpy this week.

    No, I'm grumpy, hence the name. You (and others) exercised great patience in helping out that OP.

  • TomThomson (9/24/2016)


    Jeff Moden (9/23/2016)


    Luis Cazares (9/23/2016)


    Someone needs a course on how to write basic DML. Or maybe I'm just grumpy this week.

    No... you're not grumpy. As a matter of fact, ever since MS made it so that BOL is no longer on the installation disks, the questions have been getting worse every month that passes, as has the code. I think we hit the bottom of the barrel today with that one post that asked how to initialize a variable in T-SQL. Yeah... lot's of semantics possible (as witnessed in the discussion that ensued) but, during an interview on T-SQL, one should be able to spout off the obvious answers (and there is more than 1 answer).

    I don't think MS's stupid change made a lot of difference (but it certainly made some); ...

    It certainly made a lot of difference for me personally. It's hard to search that damn website when I know the specific thing I'm looking for and I hate having to figure out which Google link to follow to find the exact one. I finally got 2012 BOL to download onto my local machine and I've been much happier since. (Love the index search function. love it, love it, love it.)

    Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database AdministratorLiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/[/url]On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.Freelance Writer: ShadowrunLatchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.

  • HELLO! This is my new "must have".

    Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database AdministratorLiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/[/url]On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.Freelance Writer: ShadowrunLatchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.

  • Brandie Tarvin (9/26/2016)


    HELLO! This is my new "must have".

    That is way cool.

    _______________________________________________________________

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  • Sean Lange (9/26/2016)


    Brandie Tarvin (9/26/2016)


    HELLO! This is my new "must have".

    That is way cool.

    That may be among the coolest things I have ever seen. Finally!!! 😀

  • Brandie Tarvin (9/26/2016)


    HELLO! This is my new "must have".

    Shared it on Twitter. I think a few people may have hurt themselves attempting to order one.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • I find it a little concerning that while there's been a decent amount of talk about how this will impact desktop Windows, there's not been so much about how it's going to impact server Windows:

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2016/08/30/a-bit-about-the-windows-servicing-model/[/url]

    Other than what boils down to basically "oh, yeah, this change includes Server 2008 R2 / 2012 / 2012 R2, you're just going to get the update rollups too."

    I mean, I know they don't generally push out new "features" to the Server OSes (at least not without calling it a new version and charging you for it,) but still. My biggest concern is, the environment I'm in, we get about 3.5 weeks from Patch Tuesday to have all our servers patched to the current updates. If a patch causes problems, we've been able to put in the paperwork to allow us to hold off on the patch until we either resolve what's causing the problem, or MS releases an updated patch that fixes the problem. Now, we'll have to put in for a rather larger number of patches.

    Keeping in mind, generally the updates don't cause us problems, but when they do cause a problem, it's usually a BIG problem...

  • Brandie Tarvin (9/26/2016)


    HELLO! This is my new "must have".

    I saw that. Not sure I'd use it, but maybe. I do use headphones when I'm on calls at times, so the mic would be cool.

    Maybe this will be a prize/SWAG from SSC this year 😉

  • jasona.work (9/26/2016)


    I find it a little concerning that while there's been a decent amount of talk about how this will impact desktop Windows, there's not been so much about how it's going to impact server Windows:

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2016/08/30/a-bit-about-the-windows-servicing-model/[/url]

    Other than what boils down to basically "oh, yeah, this change includes Server 2008 R2 / 2012 / 2012 R2, you're just going to get the update rollups too."

    I mean, I know they don't generally push out new "features" to the Server OSes (at least not without calling it a new version and charging you for it,) but still. My biggest concern is, the environment I'm in, we get about 3.5 weeks from Patch Tuesday to have all our servers patched to the current updates. If a patch causes problems, we've been able to put in the paperwork to allow us to hold off on the patch until we either resolve what's causing the problem, or MS releases an updated patch that fixes the problem. Now, we'll have to put in for a rather larger number of patches.

    Keeping in mind, generally the updates don't cause us problems, but when they do cause a problem, it's usually a BIG problem...

    This is disturbing. In my last enterprise, we would apply patches the week of Patch Tuesday to a small number of systems. This was a representative set of systems, but lower in importance if something broke. It rarely did, but it happened a few times. The next week we would do most systems, and the following week was catchup for those systems that were critical, but wanted more time to test things.

    Rolling out to all systems isn't really feasible in an Enterprise.

    On the flip side, I get MS having issues with separating patches out, and some enterprises never wanting to update anything.

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/26/2016)


    jasona.work (9/26/2016)


    I find it a little concerning that while there's been a decent amount of talk about how this will impact desktop Windows, there's not been so much about how it's going to impact server Windows:

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2016/08/30/a-bit-about-the-windows-servicing-model/[/url]

    Other than what boils down to basically "oh, yeah, this change includes Server 2008 R2 / 2012 / 2012 R2, you're just going to get the update rollups too."

    I mean, I know they don't generally push out new "features" to the Server OSes (at least not without calling it a new version and charging you for it,) but still. My biggest concern is, the environment I'm in, we get about 3.5 weeks from Patch Tuesday to have all our servers patched to the current updates. If a patch causes problems, we've been able to put in the paperwork to allow us to hold off on the patch until we either resolve what's causing the problem, or MS releases an updated patch that fixes the problem. Now, we'll have to put in for a rather larger number of patches.

    Keeping in mind, generally the updates don't cause us problems, but when they do cause a problem, it's usually a BIG problem...

    This is disturbing. In my last enterprise, we would apply patches the week of Patch Tuesday to a small number of systems. This was a representative set of systems, but lower in importance if something broke. It rarely did, but it happened a few times. The next week we would do most systems, and the following week was catchup for those systems that were critical, but wanted more time to test things.

    Rolling out to all systems isn't really feasible in an Enterprise.

    On the flip side, I get MS having issues with separating patches out, and some enterprises never wanting to update anything.

    The pattern for our patching is to hit QA first and in my case let the patches "bake in" for a week and usually if there's a problem with a patch, either it came up on tech sites between Patch Tuesday and the day they start offering the patches via SCOM, or it pops up during the patching and I can roll my VMs back on the snapshot and skip that update.

    Once QA has been fine for a week or so, then I hit my production servers.

    But, even so, this new patch process from MS concerns me, as several times when there's been an issue with an update, it doesn't come to light until a week or two or three after Patch Tuesday...

    Not looking forward to this...

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/26/2016)


    jasona.work (9/26/2016)


    I find it a little concerning that while there's been a decent amount of talk about how this will impact desktop Windows, there's not been so much about how it's going to impact server Windows:

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2016/08/30/a-bit-about-the-windows-servicing-model/[/url]

    Other than what boils down to basically "oh, yeah, this change includes Server 2008 R2 / 2012 / 2012 R2, you're just going to get the update rollups too."

    I mean, I know they don't generally push out new "features" to the Server OSes (at least not without calling it a new version and charging you for it,) but still. My biggest concern is, the environment I'm in, we get about 3.5 weeks from Patch Tuesday to have all our servers patched to the current updates. If a patch causes problems, we've been able to put in the paperwork to allow us to hold off on the patch until we either resolve what's causing the problem, or MS releases an updated patch that fixes the problem. Now, we'll have to put in for a rather larger number of patches.

    Keeping in mind, generally the updates don't cause us problems, but when they do cause a problem, it's usually a BIG problem...

    This is disturbing. In my last enterprise, we would apply patches the week of Patch Tuesday to a small number of systems. This was a representative set of systems, but lower in importance if something broke. It rarely did, but it happened a few times. The next week we would do most systems, and the following week was catchup for those systems that were critical, but wanted more time to test things.

    Rolling out to all systems isn't really feasible in an Enterprise.

    On the flip side, I get MS having issues with separating patches out, and some enterprises never wanting to update anything.

    We've just been through patch hell. It broke some very important C# code on one of our servers. We had to roll back the update in it's entirety. They have to make some changes to the code to make it compatible, again.

    --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:
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    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff Moden (9/26/2016)


    We've just been through patch hell. It broke some very important C# code on one of our servers. We had to roll back the update in it's entirety. They have to make some changes to the code to make it compatible, again.

    I've seen this happen with old habits /deprecated features in the code.

    😎

  • Microsoft seems to be adopting the attitude of "one size fits all" OS management. If they worried about their marketshare before, they're really going to be worrying about it now. I think a lot of businesses are going to be re-evaluating whether they should switch platforms when the impacts start hitting.

    Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database AdministratorLiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/[/url]On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.Freelance Writer: ShadowrunLatchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.

  • SET RANT Brandie ON;

    I just spent the past week working on a bug fix to get into our production systems before month end. Last night, after I leave for the day, the BU user testing this decided to complain about "bugs" that aren't even related to the bug fix. X item isn't working, therefore I need to investigate.

    Like a good tech support dooby, I do the due diligence. What do you know? The code is working the way it's been working for 3 years. The way the original business rules stated it should work. Why is this issue coming up now? And why doesn't the user remember the rules he helped write?

    Why is it incumbent upon me to remember the business rules for processes and to teach the users the rules every time they decide something isn't working? It would be different if the user was someone new to the company, but still HE WROTE THE RULES.

    I suppose it's a form of job security, but if I could spend all the time I use researching and pushing back on the user about business rule confusion doing other work, I'd have enough time to complete upcoming projects and automation of processes.

    SET RANT Brandie OFF;

    Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database AdministratorLiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/[/url]On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.Freelance Writer: ShadowrunLatchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.

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