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The Worst Comments

This editorial was originally published on Mar 13, 2015. It is being republished as Steve is on vacation.

I was watching a presentation recently on refactoring C# code and was amazed by some of the comments that the speakers showed in the code. The example was a real application that had been obfuscated and simplified a bit for the talk. The comments, however, had only been changed when they might disclose a specific person or company. The speakers pointed out a few of those changes, but also noted that most of the comments were verbatim from the original code.

Comments like "Dave changed this from the old way"  or "Bug 445: as per the operations group" were good examples of bad comments. These items don't really help a developer understand the code. The comments in application code should be there to add to the code itself, helping someone understand a reason for the code, not an obscure reference or an obvious statement ("this code adds two balances together).

With that in mind, I'm sure many of you have come across some comments in code that have evoked a wide range of emotions. I'm sure you've been frustrated, annoyed, or something else. Perhaps even from your own comments. With that in mind...

What are the worst comments you have found in code?

I hope you don't have examples in your current application, but perhaps you do. Perhaps you have even committed your own code recently without really taking the time to accurately describe the change. Maybe you want to go look in your VCS and see what you've entered lately.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
Redgate SQL Prompt
 Featured Contents
Stairway to DAX and Power BI

Stairway to DAX and Power BI - Level 10: Function / Iterator Function Pairs: The DAX Product() and ProductX() Functions

Bill Pearson from SQLServerCentral.com

As a part of his “Function / Iterator Pairs” mini-series, Business Intelligence architect, Analysis Services Maestro, and author Bill Pearson introduces the DAX Product()and ProductX() functions, discussing the syntax, uses and operation of each. He then provides hands-on exposure to Product()and ProductX(), respectively, in returning the product of numbers in a column and in returning the product of an expression evaluated for each row in a table.

SQL Server Triggers Pros and Cons

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

In this tip we look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of using triggers in SQL Server.

Free eBook: Fundamentals of SQL Server 2012 Replication

Press Release from Redgate

Fundamentals of SQL Server 2012 Replication provides a hands-on introduction to SQL Server replication. The book introduces you to the technologies that make up replication, and then walks you through setting up different replication scenarios. When you've finished reading, you should be able to implement your own multi-server replication setup while following the principle of least privilege.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Information Measurement with SQL Server Part 4.5: The Squared L2 Family of Distances

SQLServerSteve from SQLServerCentral

By Steve Bolton …………In the last two installments of this series of amateur self-tutorials (apart from the Fisher Information article, which I deliberately published out of order), I introduced...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Pathways to Progress

Diligentdba 46159 from SQLServerCentral

One of the most significant and hardest challenges we face as data professionals (or generally anyone in IT) is how to keep up with learning. Most of us are...

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

Properly loading the data frame

I've got a CSV file that looks like this: 
"ProcName","cputime","reads"
"GetCustomers","27784","312165"
"GetCustomerList","43170","627272"
"CalculateMonthlyTotals","48868","2705414"
"CalculateMonthlyTotals","25868","2922859"
I want to import this in RStudio, and run this: 
procs <- read.csv2("C:\\Users\\Steve\\Documents\\SQL Server Management Studio\\procexecutions.csv", header=TRUE)
I then see this: 
> head(procs)
                ProcName.cputime.reads
1            GetCustomers,27784,312165
2         GetCustomerList,43170,627272
3 CalculateMonthlyTotals,48868,2705414
4 CalculateMonthlyTotals,25868,2922859
5  CalculateMonthlyTotals,38206,862347
6           GetCustomers,49426,3449650
Why do I see all the data in one column?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

Limiting Access

I have created a role for my junior DBAs with this code:

CREATE ROLE JuniorDBA
ALTER ROLE JuniorDBA ADD MEMBER SallyDev 
ALTER ROLE JuniorDBA ADD MEMBER JoeDBA
ALTER ROLE JuniorDBA ADD MEMBER SarahDBA
-- ...

I have granted a number of rights to this role:

GRANT SELECT ON dbo.UserAccessRoles TO JuniorDBA
GRANT SELECT ON dbo.ETLJobHistory TO JuniorDBA
GRANT SELECT ON dbo.DBALogger TO JuniorDBA
-- ...

If I run this, what happens?

REVOKE SELECT ON dbo.DatabaseSizeInfo FROM SallyDev

Answer: Nothing,

Explanation: If the permission is already granted, or the GRANT was never run before a DENY, nothing happens. There is no error. In this case, nothing changes because SallyDev was not granted access, so there is nothing to revoke. The role permissions are not altered. Ref: REVOKE - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/revoke-transact-sql?view=sql-server-2017

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

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Replication - Stop transactional replication steps, Step 1 Stop Log Reader Agent Local publication folder and then right click a publication Click View Snapshot Agent Status or View Log Reader Agent Status Click stop Step 2 Expand SQL Server Agent folder and then expland Jobs folder Click Stop REPL-Distribution Job Let me know if I am missing any? How long […]
Development - SQL Server 2014
Query containing while loop for dates taking increditbly long - Hi All, I'm hoping to get some insight to an issue we're experiencing with a query in an SSIS package, which has been taking ages to complete. It takes about 3 hours in our Dev environment, and progressively longer as we've tried deploying to the upper environments. We thought as first, it might have to […]
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