Why Tools Can Help You Do Your Job

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Why Tools Can Help You Do Your Job

Kathi Kellenberger

SSChasing Mays

Points: 601
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May 18, 2019 at 12:00 am

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Why Tools Can Help You Do Your Job
May 21, 2019 at 12:51 pm

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004323 More actions · Answer 1

I have mixed reactions when it come to 3rd party tools. They're a great thing to have but I find they make people a fair bit lazy about learning unless they wrote their own.

An excellent example of this is Ola Hallengren's wonderful tools. His site documents what the parameters are along with what they do and he provides the code in a fully open source manner with labels for the sections of the code and, yet, we still have people asking about how to use the code or what an error reading might mean on this site.

To be a bit more metaphoric, you might not need to know how the drive train of your car works but you should know that running in 1st gear all the time is going to be a problem and, yes, you really need to learn how to change a tire.

Of course, how they use it, especially for index maintenance is even more ignorant.

And, while we're on that subject, "Index Maintenance" should NEVER be referred to as "Index Optimization". The two terms have little to do with each other and even Ola makes that mistake in his documentation.

--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)

williamjoseph.lpa Newbie Points: 6 More actions · Answer 2

Tools makes our job easy. They saves lot of our time and energy.

Kathi Kellenberger SSChasing Mays Points: 601 More actions · Answer 3

If you don't use the tools correctly, then there is probably not much chance you are working correctly without them either, I guess.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004323 More actions · Answer 4

Kathi Kellenberger wrote:

If you don't use the tools correctly, then there is probably not much chance you are working correctly without them either, I guess.

The problem is that a whole lot of people don't know enough to know if they're using the tools correctly (especially when the entire world is sometimes in the same rut and the heavy hitters of the SQL community continue to recommend that the rut is the right way 😉 and that's NOT a reference to your or your good article, Kathi) or even if the tool is working correctly. 😀

--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)

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736172 More actions · Answer 5

Tools are essential. Everyone uses them, whether they write one, download one, or buy one. These make a huge difference. Learning to use them properly is important, and unlike the hammer-hitting-my-finger in the real world, in the virtual one, people get by without knowing much for longer periods of time.

That being said, the build v buy debate is hard to win, even with yourself. I constantly find myself going one way or the other.