SQL Frenzy,

I really like what you are attempting to do. There are still some rough spots, but they can be worked out.

Clearly DBAs should not go dropping indexes and...

OK, I'll take up the case for using cursors for some types of processing. I've posted below a copy of a stored procedure I just finished. It uses a read-only...

Very poor. Exhibits a fundamental lack of understanding of multi-dimensional arrays. This shows why academic journals have articles reviewed before they're published.

Excellent article. Thank you. Interesting also to see the difference between identity inserts and deletes and updates quantified.

But I do wonder why someone would need 5 snapshots. That seems to...

I've been a developer for over 20 years: Fortran to VB3 to VB6 to C#. I've been an MCSD since 1997 and an MCDBA since 2001. And I disagree with...

Just like to thank everyone for an excellent discussion. Very informative.

Jeff Roughgarden, Ph.D., MCDBA, MCSD

Mark,

Could you give some links to discussion on the (lack of) scalability of the EAV model?

Also, what do you recommend in its place, master entity tables with 1-1 subtables...

Yes, the C# code has to use the culture-aware parse method, and is aware of the requested culture.

Int32..::.Parse Method (String, NumberStyles, IFormatProvider)

I am currently designing a DB that employs this name value pair approach to store arbitrary sets of attributes to be associated to a variety of entities. I am concerned...

I also make extensive use of identity surrogate keys for all the reasons described above. For me, the question is why not use an identity key? There are some cases,...

In response to Jeff, yes I do make the changes across the board. Generally if a type changes, you'll have to change the parameter type in calls anyway.

In response to...

Call me neurotic or worse, but I am a very strong believer in using only as large a data type as needed. I use tinyints and smallints in place of...

I attempted to implement DM on a 3-box workgroup using the GUI wizard, but failed, apparently because the wizard's logic does not work for workgroups. So next I tried to...

Thank you, Simon, and all others who participated in this thread.

FWIW, I was DBA Manager and inherited paired clustered servers at six sites throughout the US, all doing merge replication....

To Newbie and MIke,

First, to Newbie, I am not clear on the motivation for sections 1 to 6 that establish ingoing and outgoing connections among the three servers. Why is...