The Religious Wars
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Hmmmm.... if there are no absolutes... then there just might be some.
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Speed of light in a Vacuum
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Actually, Mia, it depends. Among "my" people, religiously speaking, there is an entire method of "it depends" well ensconsed in the tradition, and the idea that conflicting ideas can be both be right - the most famous being Shamai and Hillel.
None of which contradicts the full irony Steve's language at all...according to some - others say however - well, let's just leave it at that, I have to go wrestle with some NULLs that some Infidel Apostate used that are breaking on my Sybase -> SQL Server Port because
"A" + NULL == "A" in Sybase and
"A" + NULL == NULL in SQL Server
(and SQL Server is Right, if ANSI SQL is your Canon. Of course, Sybase's syntax was handed down before ANSI SQL - a Latter Revelation)
Roger L Reid
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R.L.,
Your people are my people. Religion is absolutely (pun here) not tradition. Ancient rabbis had the best jobs .. of course that depends ...
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how did this debate go from database design to religon?
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full outer join?
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Religious people especially Christian (fundamentalist) and Islam, Judam, they are all absolute. Whatever they do is according to their rule and the 'BIBLE'. They are the worst DBAs to work with.
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I'm thinking that we should keep "real" religion out of this...
By the way, I did find my iron
--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) -
That is why us C of C people are so misunderstood. They don't know where to put us - so they put us in this little room full of servers.
Steve started this by picking the title. I think that we are safe as long as we stick to the parralles between strongly held traditions and belief in software and those tendencies in "real" religion. Jeff is right in that we don't want to start debating "real" religion here.
Peace spoken here.
ATBCharles Kincaid
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I was hoping this would turn into more of a DBA debate on why we as a group of professionals get so worked up about various topics. Lately I've followed debates on these topics: NULLS, XML/CSV as parameters, string handling, row v record terminology, and a couple more.
Both here and on the MS forums, I've seen people get incredibly worked up and downright hostile towards each other. More so than I see in sysadmin or developer discussions.
Religion is something personal between you and your god, or lack thereof. I brought that up as a parallel with DBAs because of the history of both.
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... and you are spot on! The thing is that what you are seeing is the effect of human psychology. We tend to hold to our beliefs and traditions rather than embrace new ideas that have merit. That this is true in SQL more than other places is remarkable.
I like REPLACE INTO becase it saves me a bunch of time in coding. I only have to write one statement as it does either the insert or update as needed. Not widely implemented though. I wrote a beautiful class that builds faultless SQL statements. Stuff you field values in. If you specify a WHERE parameter you get an UPDATE statment. No WHERE clause you get an INSERT statement. It got banned because the boss could not understand how it worked.
I don't like Oracle because I don't understand all of it. DB400 is a pain due to it limitations. There are still folks mesmerized by FoxPro and Access.
Must get along with them all! For those on salary click your heels and repeat "It all pays the same. It all pays the same. It all ..."
ATBCharles Kincaid
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Steve,
You picked the right name for the topic. Just liked I said the religious people sticked to their rules and their 'BIBLE'. They also liked to preach to other people all the time to 'save' their soul.
The same applied to DBAs, they sticked to what they believed that their way was the best . They did not want to listen to other people idea, but liked to preach their idea to other people and hoped other people accepted their idea.
UNIX people did not like window. Main frame people did not like UNIX. Oracle DBAs and developers did not like SQL server and vice versa.
Java programmers hate .NET and C#. The list can go on and on.....
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I, for one, have enjoyed the simple yet educated rhetoric spawned by this editorial. The reason for most of the passion displayed is likely because of personal experience and I sympathize will those who have had the bad experiences and envy those with the good. At the risk of being a bit melancholy, a difference of opinion, even at the level of being a "holy war", only tends to bring out the best in all of us. Bluntly stated, at the edge of chaos and controversy, you will find innovation and skill.
--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)
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