July 20, 2011 at 8:46 am
How do you add the pressure of real-life in it? That version of the questions seems a little too easy (people like to have harder questions after years doing this. Level 200 or 300 if possible).
200/300 level implies knowledge of foundational concepts and techniques, not trickery
Sorry for assuming you were human and fallible, in typing the question out. Didn't know you had a God complex.
July 20, 2011 at 8:47 am
mbova407 (7/20/2011)
How do you add the pressure of real-life in it? That version of the questions seems a little too easy (people like to have harder questions after years doing this. Level 200 or 300 if possible).
200/300 level implies knowledge of foundational concepts and techniques, not trickery
Sorry for assuming you were human and fallible, in typing the question out. Didn't know you had a God complex.
No God complexe at all. Where did you get that from?
I'm trying to find a better way to ask this question so I'd like your input to make this hard and NOT trickery. Any ideas welcomed.
July 20, 2011 at 8:58 am
Ninja's_RGR'us (7/20/2011)
I had considered that as well. The case statement is a technic that I use once in a while so that has value all by itself.The title is vonluntarely misleading. Any other title would have given the answer away and taken a lot of value out of the experience. Please reffer to my first post for my full train of thoughts.
I have read that post but it would be still possible to have the question titled appropriately or preserve the title and change the wording in the question slightly. I believe that at least some people do have to pause for a sec to figure that
insert into @t
select 1
union all select 2
union all select * from @t;
go
inserts 2 records into the table not 4. In other words, the inserts into the table do not happen as prescribed in the statement, but that whole select is rather evaluated first and then insert into kicks in. What this means is that if you preserved the title and changed the wording to "How many records will be inserted by the following statement?" then it would make some people to quickly disregard the last select and the predicate because the table has no records until after insert into kicked in, but it would make someone to go through the logic of the case statement, figure how many records it would return should the records prescribed by the previous selects already existed in the table...
That said, you are correct, it would make the question too easy. I just cannot force myself to like the questions which are based on some sort of the statement is still valid as far as syntax is converned but in reality I meant to type something else. Like in the case of this question, how should the readers know that you had unwanted UNION ALL sandwiched between select 4 and select * from @t where ... What about coming up with the same question tomorrow but now including the explantion about unwanted UNION ALL in the different spot 🙂
Anyway, at this time I have "earned" that point I was craving, so I can go back to the ask side of this site where I belong.
Oleg
July 20, 2011 at 9:05 am
Oleg Netchaev (7/20/2011)
Ninja's_RGR'us (7/20/2011)
I had considered that as well. The case statement is a technic that I use once in a while so that has value all by itself.The title is vonluntarely misleading. Any other title would have given the answer away and taken a lot of value out of the experience. Please reffer to my first post for my full train of thoughts.
I have read that post but it would be still possible to have the question titled appropriately or preserve the title and change the wording in the question slightly. I believe that at least some people do have to pause for a sec to figure that
insert into @tselect 1
union all select 2
union all select * from @t;
go
inserts 2 records into the table not 4. In other words, the inserts into the table do not happen as prescribed in the statement, but that whole select is rather evaluated first and then insert into kicks in. What this means is that if you preserved the title and changed the wording to "How many records will be inserted by the following statement?" then it would make some people to quickly disregard the last select and the predicate because the table has no records until after insert into kicked in, but it would make someone to go through the logic of the case statement, figure how many records it would return should the records prescribed by the previous selects already existed in the table...
That said, you are correct, it would make the question too easy. I just cannot force myself to like the questions which are based on some sort of the statement is still valid as far as syntax is converned but in reality I meant to type something else. Like in the case of this question, how should the readers know that you had unwanted UNION ALL sandwiched between select 4 and select * from @t where ... What about coming up with the same question tomorrow but now including the explantion about unwanted UNION ALL in the different spot 🙂
Anyway, at this time I have "earned" that point I was craving, so I can go back to the ask side of this site where I belong.
Oleg
I like this twist. I'll keep this in mind next time. Makes a nice level 100 question which we need from time to time :-).
July 20, 2011 at 9:10 am
Ninja's_RGR'us (7/20/2011)
paul s-306273 (7/20/2011)
OK, was the point of the question1 - to make us aware that we need to read things properly
2 - to make the majority or readers look stupid
or
3 - to make the question setter look superior?
1 - Well you already know that already.
2 - No way
3 - No even close.
Actually if you have time to read all my message it's one of those times where I felt the stupidest and I wanted to share the experience. So it's actually quite the opposite of #3.
Okay, glad to hear that 3 wasn't even close.
I'll be more wary next time I see you name against a question!:-)
July 20, 2011 at 9:10 am
Ninja's_RGR'us (7/20/2011)
OzYbOi d(-_-)b (7/20/2011)
So can I take it from all the chatter this morning that we will have no shortage of submissions for future QoTD? 😛Thanks for the question. Totally got where you were taking this. I guess the lesson to take away is not to judge a QoTD by the title. 😀
You can't count on it. Sometimes that's the only (easiest) to conceal the answer and give any value to the question.
BTW anyone took the MS certs? Those questions ain't easy either from what I've heard.
Been taking all of them, not just the SQL ones, since '97.
They aint easy, and some answers or questions are jsut wrong.
You have to have a great memory, study hard, and understand the subject matter being tested or you will fail!
However the test are put into labled sections and subject matter. You do not find question testing your ability for one thing in the section of, or test subject matter of another.
For example you will not find a question testing monitoring skills in a section on TSQL with the wording how many rows are returned by:
select a.* from sys_dmv.Monitor o
July 20, 2011 at 9:11 am
Last time I made such an error? This morning. Answered question. Got it wrong. Realised what the problem was and decided to copy/paste code to run and verify. I didn't copy the final end and so got Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 26
Incorrect syntax near 'END'.
Hope that gives you a smile in return for a question that, imho, was a useful one.
July 20, 2011 at 9:11 am
cengland0 (7/20/2011)
Thanks but it's not about the points. I'm a perfectionist with OCD so I take these QOTD's very serious. I think of them as a test of my knowledge not as a way to learn but if I miss a question then I'll read about it and learn why.
Once I happened to be told by a renowned physician and professor emeritus of 2 very prestigious universities that OCD for perfectionists should have been named OCC, that is C for Condition rather than D for Disorder. This is simply because OCC is nice to have for many who want to be good professionals, it really helps them to prevent the errors from happening 🙂
July 20, 2011 at 9:12 am
OzYbOi d(-_-)b (7/20/2011)
So can I take it from all the chatter this morning that we will have no shortage of submissions for future QoTD? 😛
I have to say after reading through the question and all the comments, this was the first one that made me laugh. Out loud. And Long. Thanks OzYbOi.
I've been answering the QOD for years. Some I've liked, some I didn't (I'm still stewing over a 40 point question I missed once :-P). I've submitted a few myself too and I know they are tough to write. I'm just glad to have the QOD to look forward to every day, rain or shine without fail. Thanks to all who have submitted a question and to those who come out and answer the question every day. It takes both sides to keep it going and I love it.
Thanks,
Chad
July 20, 2011 at 9:17 am
paul s-306273 (7/20/2011)
Ninja's_RGR'us (7/20/2011)
paul s-306273 (7/20/2011)
OK, was the point of the question1 - to make us aware that we need to read things properly
2 - to make the majority or readers look stupid
or
3 - to make the question setter look superior?
1 - Well you already know that already.
2 - No way
3 - No even close.
Actually if you have time to read all my message it's one of those times where I felt the stupidest and I wanted to share the experience. So it's actually quite the opposite of #3.
Okay, glad to hear that 3 wasn't even close.
I'll be more wary next time I see you name against a question!:-)
Like I said earlier, never expect level 100 question from me (they bore me). So anything you can lookup in 2 secs in bol or google is not going to be associated with my name.
If you could create a new category for this type of question, what would you name it?
July 20, 2011 at 9:19 am
hor_netuk (7/20/2011)
Last time I made such an error? This morning. Answered question. Got it wrong. Realised what the problem was and decided to copy/paste code to run and verify. I didn't copy the final end and so got Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 26Incorrect syntax near 'END'.
Hope that gives you a smile in return for a question that, imho, was a useful one.
Thanx for sharing. I was hoping some of you could see part of their life in my little 5 minutes of hell. 😉
July 20, 2011 at 9:21 am
Oleg Netchaev (7/20/2011)
cengland0 (7/20/2011)
Thanks but it's not about the points. I'm a perfectionist with OCD so I take these QOTD's very serious. I think of them as a test of my knowledge not as a way to learn but if I miss a question then I'll read about it and learn why.Once I happened to be told by a renowned physician and professor emeritus of 2 very prestigious universities that OCD for perfectionists should have been named OCC, that is C for Condition rather than D for Disorder. This is simply because OCC is nice to have for many who want to be good professionals, it really helps them to prevent the errors from happening 🙂
Ah :w00t: I'll try to squeeze that one in in my next interview. :hehe:
July 20, 2011 at 9:35 am
Toreador (7/20/2011)
My original thought was that there would be no rows returned as this was an insert.But I then thought that was silly, and I was being unfair on the questioner who had made an honest and obvious mistake - there are too many questions that provoke pedantic discussions whyen the meaning of the question is clear.
So I answered the question as if it had been 'how many rows are inserted'.
Given recent questions, I think this was a fair assumption to make.
My reasoning, as well. To the author of the question, the wording may have made sense; he knew what he'd been trying to do and couldn't figure out why he wasn't getting the results he expected. To someone coming at the question "out of the blue", the question itself didn't make sense. We were left to make our own assumptions about what may have been meant and obviously many of us got it wrong -- not the answer, but the assumption about what the author meant.
Poor question.
Rob Schripsema
Propack, Inc.
July 20, 2011 at 9:38 am
Rob Schripsema (7/20/2011)
Toreador (7/20/2011)
My original thought was that there would be no rows returned as this was an insert.But I then thought that was silly, and I was being unfair on the questioner who had made an honest and obvious mistake - there are too many questions that provoke pedantic discussions whyen the meaning of the question is clear.
So I answered the question as if it had been 'how many rows are inserted'.
Given recent questions, I think this was a fair assumption to make.
My reasoning, as well. To the author of the question, the wording may have made sense; he knew what he'd been trying to do and couldn't figure out why he wasn't getting the results he expected. To someone coming at the question "out of the blue", the question itself didn't make sense. We were left to make our own assumptions about what may have been meant and obviously many of us got it wrong -- not the answer, but the assumption about what the author meant.
Poor question.
It's real life, I was thrown into this situation myself out of the blue, with the wrong assumptions.
We are profesionnals, it's what we do. It's what we need to be able to do day in and day out.
Sorry you didn't like it. I still hope you get something out of this thread.
🙂
July 20, 2011 at 9:42 am
Oleg Netchaev (7/20/2011)
Once I happened to be told by a renowned physician and professor emeritus of 2 very prestigious universities that OCD for perfectionists should have been named OCC, that is C for Condition rather than D for Disorder. This is simply because OCC is nice to have for many who want to be good professionals, it really helps them to prevent the errors from happening 🙂
Good way to look at it except for one thing. I am on medication to "fix" this disorder. The medication helps me not care as much and that gives me less stress in my life.
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