August 15, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Jeff Moden (8/15/2009)
D.Oc (8/15/2009)
Jeff, it appears you are very popular among article stealers 😛Ugh! So it would seem. BWAA-HAAA!!! I've gotta look at the bright side though... apparently they thought it was good enough to steal. :hehe: Like Grant implied earlier, maybe it'll become a badge of honor and start showing up job applications and personality tests. 😛
Section# 37:
1. How many times have one or more of your articles been plagurized or stolen in the last year?___________ Last 5 years?__________
2. If you answered question 1 with other than "0", how many average pork chops did you use to correct each infringment?___________ Of those, how many died due to pork poisoning?_________ Were their any survivors?___________ If yes, have you made it so they'll never work in the United States nor ever recieve an MVP award anywhere in the world?____________
Funny thing is that your articles are very long and they just don't fit into normal blog type of writing, blogs are intended to be short with a few examples.
Your articles are more appropriate for big sites like SSC.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"It takes 15 minutes to learn the game and a lifetime to master"
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."
August 16, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Lynn Pettis (8/15/2009)
Jeff Moden (8/15/2009)
Lynn Pettis (8/15/2009)
GilaMonster (8/15/2009)
Lynn Pettis (8/15/2009)
You'd think someone with the alphabet soup following his name would know better.Yes, you would.... Especially the one that reads 'MCT'
I've corrected him elsewhere also today. I'm just waiting for one of these people with Alphabet soup to call me on my credentials when that happens.... *evil:-D*
p.s. he PM'd me earlier to say 'hi'
Yea, I caught that thread also, regarding passwords iirc.
Heh... ok guys... cough it up. I want to see it, too! 😛
Heh... man... that second one was just stupid.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
August 16, 2009 at 10:13 pm
I think this is the longest thread I have ever seen. I read page 1 and page 248.
As to whether or not the posts have gotten worse, I've been gone for about 6 months and haven't had much of a chance to check it all out again yet, but one thing I did notice is that a lot of names I don't recognize from before also have Jeff's 'how to post' article in their signatures, so I assumed that that particular epidemic was still in full effect =).
August 16, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Garadin (8/16/2009)
I think this is the longest thread I have ever seen. I read page 1 and page 248.As to whether or not the posts have gotten worse, I've been gone for about 6 months and haven't had much of a chance to check it all out again yet, but one thing I did notice is that a lot of names I don't recognize from before also have Jeff's 'how to post' article in their signatures, so I assumed that that particular epidemic was still in full effect =).
Seth, it is the normal state of affairs. We are constantly pointing out that article to various people, sometimes several times to the same person.
August 17, 2009 at 4:21 am
I'm curious as to what would be seen as a dumb question that is acceptable, and a dumb question that isn't acceptable?
Obviously, the question I saw earlier (how do I copy a file?) is pretty obvious, but what are the limits? For instance, I was asking and saying a lot of dumb things about self-joins and outer joins a few days ago in another thread... 🙂
I only ask, cause sometimes it's good to ask the silly questions, or make a silly reply and get corrected. How else does one learn?
August 17, 2009 at 5:06 am
Its not the 'dumbness' of question that is the issue , after all everyone has limits to their knowledge.
What may seem obvious to you may not be obvious the me.
A 'worse' question would be :
"My server run slow , i try everything , what could i of missed ?"
Ie no detail at all...
August 17, 2009 at 5:18 am
Jeff Moden (8/15/2009)
GilaMonster (8/15/2009)
Jeff Moden (8/15/2009)
Yeah... I love people's blogs... 😛Ok, now I'm worried....
Heh... please don't be. Your blogs are the epitome of what every DBA and database consultant should strive for and you would definitely fall into the "Interview" category except I don't always cotton to hiring someone smarter than me. 😉
Yeah, stop worrying Gail. I'm worried. I'm the one that put out a blog post recently that was rushed and, subsequently, 100% wrong.
"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
August 17, 2009 at 6:20 am
ta.bu.shi.da.yu (8/17/2009)
I'm curious as to what would be seen as a dumb question that is acceptable, and a dumb question that isn't acceptable?Obviously, the question I saw earlier (how do I copy a file?) is pretty obvious, but what are the limits? For instance, I was asking and saying a lot of dumb things about self-joins and outer joins a few days ago in another thread... 🙂
I only ask, cause sometimes it's good to ask the silly questions, or make a silly reply and get corrected. How else does one learn?
Dave put it well. The problem isn't dumb questions, its not giving enough information to be able to give an answer. The more detail that is given, the more information provided, the better an answer will be. This is one of the reasons you will see many of us constantly pointing people to the articles written by Jeff and Gail. You'll find those two articles in the first two links in my signature block.
We aren't mind readers, and we don't work with your systems. You (and I am not talking about a single person here) do, you have to give us enough information to understand your problem, so we can try to help you resolve your problem.
Dumb questions are questions asked dumbly, with little or no information or context to really be able to help.
Like Dave's example "My server is running slowly, I've tried everything, what could I have missed?" No information, no context, how could we help?
August 17, 2009 at 6:25 am
Jeff Moden (8/16/2009)
Lynn Pettis (8/15/2009)
Jeff Moden (8/15/2009)
Lynn Pettis (8/15/2009)
GilaMonster (8/15/2009)
Lynn Pettis (8/15/2009)
You'd think someone with the alphabet soup following his name would know better.Yes, you would.... Especially the one that reads 'MCT'
I've corrected him elsewhere also today. I'm just waiting for one of these people with Alphabet soup to call me on my credentials when that happens.... *evil:-D*
p.s. he PM'd me earlier to say 'hi'
Yea, I caught that thread also, regarding passwords iirc.
Heh... ok guys... cough it up. I want to see it, too! 😛
Heh... man... that second one was just stupid.
And with all the certs, you'd think there would be some attention to detail!!?? :w00t:
-- You can't be late until you show up.
August 17, 2009 at 6:30 am
Cheers Lynn and Dave 🙂
The most valuable one I've read was Jeff Modem's, where he gave a pretty decent explanation of what you need to post so that people can assist with queries. It helped heaps as I got an answer straight away... though it took a bit of time for me to work out how the solution worked!
An observation about certifications: I actually think they can be useful, but only if you think about what you are learning. Some people just regurgitate facts, which just isn't that helpful.
August 17, 2009 at 6:38 am
ta.bu.shi.da.yu (8/17/2009)
I'm curious as to what would be seen as a dumb question that is acceptable, and a dumb question that isn't acceptable?Obviously, the question I saw earlier (how do I copy a file?) is pretty obvious, but what are the limits? For instance, I was asking and saying a lot of dumb things about self-joins and outer joins a few days ago in another thread... 🙂
I only ask, cause sometimes it's good to ask the silly questions, or make a silly reply and get corrected. How else does one learn?
Yes it' s no so much the questions asked as the lack of effort put into:
2. Attempting to find the answer on your own. Many of the questions can be answered by just looking in BOL or a quick google/bing search.
#1 is an issue because we are volunteers and we shouldn't have to spend most of our time drawing out the information needed to answer a question.
#2 is an issue because I am judged as a professional by the competence of my peers and most people posting on SSC claim to be SQL Server DBA's or Developers so they make my profession look bad when they can't solve problems using the tools provided them.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing the answer, but at least show that you have made an attempt to figure it out. I don't recall the thread(s) you mention, but if you showed some code you had written that is usually enough to show you at least tried. I've never installed or administered a cluster, so if I had to do that I'd read up on it and then ask specific questions here when there was a point I didn't understand.
Anyway, my $0.02 on the whole .
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
Check out these links on how to get faster and more accurate answers:
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help
Need an Answer? Actually, No ... You Need a Question
August 17, 2009 at 6:44 am
And what worries me about #2 is that people will just accept the answer and run things, not bothering to check themselves if they can't check first.
I'll admit there are places (like tractors) where I'll post pretty quickly after a cursory search, but I do try to then check the answer somehow. Mostly because I'm not sure if an answer sometimes is the same situation. However I'll also then make sure I have enough detail to explain my situation so someone can give me a reasonable answer.
August 17, 2009 at 6:52 am
Both are good points.
Most of the questions I see are either about:
a. transaction logs, setup questions, etc.
b. how to maintain the database, or
c. why doesn't my query run so well/how do I write this query?
For me, a. and b. aren't really relevant, but c. definitely is. I've found it invaluable when trying to work something out to reduce the problem to its simplest terms, then try to create a dummy table with the sort of values I'm try to access. Then if I can't work it out from there, I post the question.
That allows me to check the answers - though admittedly I've been given some answers that unwittingly gave me triangular joins...
I guess my philosophy has been: there's no such thing as a dumb question. But now I think of it, I'm modifying this to "there's no such thing as a dumb question, so long as it's so vague as to be useless".
August 17, 2009 at 7:09 am
ta.bu.shi.da.yu (8/17/2009)
I'm curious as to what would be seen as a dumb question that is acceptable, and a dumb question that isn't acceptable?Obviously, the question I saw earlier (how do I copy a file?) is pretty obvious, but what are the limits? For instance, I was asking and saying a lot of dumb things about self-joins and outer joins a few days ago in another thread... 🙂
I only ask, cause sometimes it's good to ask the silly questions, or make a silly reply and get corrected. How else does one learn?
In my definition, a dumb question is one that can't be answered accurately as worded. The only time I consider a question questionable beyond that, is when someone asks a basic question, and brags about credentials.
If, for example, you were asking basic questions about joins, and had "MCDBA" after your name in your sig, that would be a WTF question. (Not a dumb question. A WTF question. There's a big difference.) On the other hand, if you were asking about joins, and it's pretty obvious you're new to relational databases, then there's nothing wrong with that at all.
It took me three years to get a good answer to the question, "What does 'relational' mean in reference to databases?" I was a DBA that whole time (have been one for almost 9 years at this point). Was that a dumb question? I don't think so, since I've had no education nor training on the subject, and the online resources I could find at that time said things like, "Having to do with relational databases", and defined relational databases as, "Databases with relations".
Now, I think this thread was started more on the subject of WTF questions than dumb questions. "I dropped my database, and I don't have a backup, how do I get it back?" "I used DBCC CHECKDB REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS and now my data is gone. Why? How do I get it back?" "I have a proc that's slow. Experts tell me how to speed it up, please. Only good answers, please." That kind of thing.
- 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
August 17, 2009 at 7:14 am
Steve Jones - Editor (8/17/2009)
And what worries me about #2 is that people will just accept the answer and run things, not bothering to check themselves if they can't check first.
My conscience constantly nags me if i feel im posting a solution that i have a pretty good idea that the OP doesn't understand. Granted some will take the time to dissect it to find out how it works, but some will only see the code again once the metaphorical s**t has hit the fan.
ta.bu.shi.da.yu (8/17/2009)
though admittedly I've been given some answers that unwittingly gave me triangular joins...
Maybe the poster of the solution honestly believed that the triangular was what you needed.
Viewing 15 posts - 7,426 through 7,440 (of 66,712 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply