His "-1" answer is in response to me saying that I institute an average of -1 SQLCLRs a year by replacing them with T-SQL. 🙂

Also, I'm the one that changed the subject a bit... not Joe. And it's OK because we learn other stuff than the original subject that way. In this case, it was me because I've unfortunately and fortunately been subject to many systems that have been waylaid by a dozen people's personal preferences and/or inability to do even simple things in T-SQL. I say "unfortunately" because I was the one assigned to fix their massive performance problems and had to spend much time just trying to figure out what the hell the non-homogenous code was supposed to do both at the module level and the fully integrated level and then try to figure out which parts of which modules where causing the performance problems. I say "fortunately" because it taught me about something that I think should be avoided and gave me the chance to teach others in the process (not to mention helping the company by fixing the problem code by replacing it).

When I saw you (a known T-SQL heavy-weight, IMHO... just look at your great NGram code if not all your great posts), I couldn't help but to identify that I have even less experience at writing SQLCLR than you because I normally replace them with something faster and sometimes more accurate.

Joe saw that and it's obvious that he's also been bitten by the proverbial "Tower of Babel" and, like anyone else, wrote a post expressing his extreme dislike for what frequently appears to be willy-nilly choices made based on personal preference sometimes (many times) fueled by a lack of knowledge. Shoot... I even had one idiot that demanded that I promote his SQLCLR function to do a Modulus which, of course, I didn't do.

Joe's response was to my tangential comment about replacing SQLCLR with T-SQL and expressing his point of view on that subject without explaining what he was responding to. He wasn't responding directly to you. He was agreeing with me and writing for anyone who would listen... just like I did with my post.

The really odd part here is that Joe isn't actually the instigator here. He made a rather benign comment (didn't call anyone a 5th grader or tell them to read a beginner's book or pound on the ANSI/ISO pulpit this time 🙂 ) based on my comment and on his personal experience on a very old, still very common, and still very relevant problem... and then got bombed for expressing an opinion that attacked no one on this thread even in a passive-aggressive manner.

As for the comments about his opinion being "absolute nonsense" and "meaningless blather", I'd have to say that you've probably never witnessed the actual problem that both he and I are talking about. When you eventually do, think back to this moment. 🙂

I'll be and have been one of the first folks to stuff a canary in Joe's throat when he's doing his normal passive-aggressive and sometimes outright ad hominem attacks but he didn't deserve it this time.