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RE: Hunting and Gathering

dojo25 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:11:52 GMT

HAL: I would recommend that we put the unit back in operation and let it fail. It should then be a simple matter to track down the cause.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

GSquared — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:22:23 GMT

It's a good analogy. The web gives us a lot of easy access to a lot of information, but one look at Snopes.com or MuseumOfHoaxes.com should convince anyone that care needs to be taken before "eating" that information.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Jeff Moden — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:09:54 GMT

I, for one, still think the internet is a well paved onramp to a dirt road and it always will be because anyone can post about anything at anytime with little or no knowledge and little, if any, repercussion for their posts. There are some sources that I gravitate towards because I've tested their published knowledge and they've been mostly correct.Still, not everything on those cherished fountains of knowledge are accurate and some are still dangerous. Anyone remember 2k sp3??? :hehe:The bottom line is that any who seek knowledge on the internet must do just as all hunter/gatherers must do... even when on a familiar and well trodden path, one must watch for bears and wolves, avoid traps set by others, and try not to step off a new cliff in a tight squeeze or break an ankle in a new pothole.The only remedy is to test for both the positive and negative paths. When you're done testing, test again, sleep on it, and then test one more time.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Phillip - Texas — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:52:39 GMT

Yeah, that sounds familiar, that documentation was better in those days. Probably too many reasons to list here why over the years we have seen cutbacks in documentaion and manuals. Many are maybe related to cost/benefit/what you can cut out.I do recall older manuals containing diagrams, schematics, etc. I am betrayed by my reaction of "who the heck would use that?"

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Matt Miller (#4) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:42:54 GMT

[quote][b]Phillip - Texas (3/26/2010)[/b][hr]What did people do back in the day? (how ever long ago that is for you.) Where did you get your information from, technical manuals and trial and error? I'm talking like back in the days of punch cards and computers only universities and governments could own. You couldn't just go ask someone because no one would know what the heck a dip switch was.Point: It's paradoxical, how can you determine if a piece of information is correct if you are the one searching for the correct answer?Point: I think, ultimately, it shakes out those types of people who are prone to tinker with technology. Let me try it then log my results, learn, evaluate, then make a slight change and try it again, then document, then share what I learned.Anecdote: When I first learned from the Internet about low level formatting of hard disks I promptly ruined my 10GB IDE drive. (although it did work the first couple of times.)Can someone offer up a story from more than 15 years ago?[/quote]Manuals mostly; failing that - just keep testing/tinkering until you find the solution. I don't go back so far as the punch card era, but even in the late 80's and early 90's, you didn't have centralized places to find such info. I do find that my older books were substantially better with complete detail than the newer stuff (where you're lcky to get any schematic, let alone a functional schematic you could use for repairs). I remember having to resodder a motherboard backplane for some critical server based on scavenging parts from another machine and relying on a black and white "picture" of the motherboard layout.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Larry Aue — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:30:28 GMT

That's what the education system is supposed to do... it doesn't give you all the answers, it equips you with the tools to find the answers to the questions you haven't been asked yet.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Phillip - Texas — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:04:28 GMT

What did people do back in the day? (how ever long ago that is for you.) Where did you get your information from, technical manuals and trial and error? I'm talking like back in the days of punch cards and computers only universities and governments could own. You couldn't just go ask someone because no one would know what the heck a dip switch was.Point: It's paradoxical, how can you determine if a piece of information is correct if you are the one searching for the correct answer?Point: I think, ultimately, it shakes out those types of people who are prone to tinker with technology. Let me try it then log my results, learn, evaluate, then make a slight change and try it again, then document, then share what I learned.Anecdote: When I first learned from the Internet about low level formatting of hard disks I promptly ruined my 10GB IDE drive. (although it did work the first couple of times.)Can someone offer up a story from more than 15 years ago?

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Trey Staker — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:59:59 GMT

Great editorial. As a DBA I'm constantly studying. A lot of the material comes from books, bol, search engines, blogs, sites like ssc. What I've found trying to sift through mountains of information is that you begin to trust certain authors, sites and bloggers over time. The more I learn the more I learn to tell when the information doesn't apply, is misleading or completely wrong. Sometimes I find that my way of thinking is completely wrong. I think some of the authors over time realize that some of their ways of thinking were wrong as well.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

NULLgarity — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:44:12 GMT

This type of thing is where I really see value in the MVP program. I usually give the benefit of the doubt to advice/tips/explanations as when I see MVP by the name of the person offering it. That's not to say I disregard others, I just approach it a bit more skeptically until I am convinced of its accuracy.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

SQLRNNR — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:48:59 GMT

Interesting article. I didn't quite expect something of this nature in an editorial. This was a good read.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Jedak — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:07:26 GMT

Interesting article. I know I'm always searching google for technical information.For those concerned with the AWE settings the following are some information concerning the memory settings on SQL Server.[url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/glennberry/archive/2009/11/01/two-very-important-configuration-settings-for-sql-server-2005_2F00_2008.aspx]http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/glennberry/archive/2009/11/01/two-very-important-configuration-settings-for-sql-server-2005_2F00_2008.aspx[/url][url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/glennberry/archive/2009/10/29/suggested-max-memory-settings-for-sql-server-2005_2F00_2008.aspx]http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/glennberry/archive/2009/10/29/suggested-max-memory-settings-for-sql-server-2005_2F00_2008.aspx[/url][url=http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao/archive/2006/11/13/q-a-does-sql-server-always-respond-to-memory-pressure.aspx]http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao/archive/2006/11/13/q-a-does-sql-server-always-respond-to-memory-pressure.aspx[/url][url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Lock+Pages+in+Memory/67975/]http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Lock+Pages+in+Memory/67975/[/url]

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Larry Aue — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:02:04 GMT

I search to get a direction moreso than an answer. Thinking about it, you do the exact same thing within your own team of coworkers. Someone gives you advice and you act on it. The net is no different, it's just a little bigger. :-D

RE: Hunting and Gathering

jcrawf02 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:21:39 GMT

Twitter, #sqlhelp hashtag. Some of the folks who wrote BOL might respond and clarify the issue for you.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

jcrawf02 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:20:08 GMT

[quote][b]Raju Lalvani (3/26/2010)[/b][hr]It is rather strange that our faith in answers posted on the internet are taken as "Gospel Truth" :-). We generally pick up the first few answers returned by a search engine, implement it and then figure out that was not the best possible :w00t:;. We need to spend more time in figuring out, by going through the other search results and figuring out which would be a possible solution.[/quote]Did anybody ever tell you that if you Drop the Master dbs, you'll no longer have *any problems* with your servers?[size="1"]mainly because you won't be working there anymore...[/size]If we don't find out WHY something works, the pros and cons of it, etc, before implementing in production, then yeah, we definitely need to change our patterns.

RE: Hunting and Gathering

jcrawf02 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:15:32 GMT

[quote][b]paul s-306273 (3/26/2010)[/b][hr]"have you tried switching if off and on again" (the last one is a joke, of course).[i]That does work sometimes![/i][/quote]treating the symptom, not the disease...

RE: Hunting and Gathering

paul s-306273 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:48:11 GMT

"have you tried switching if off and on again" (the last one is a joke, of course).[i]That does work sometimes![/i]

RE: Hunting and Gathering

Raju Lalvani — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:02:10 GMT

It is rather strange that our faith in answers posted on the internet are taken as "Gospel Truth" :-). We generally pick up the first few answers returned by a search engine, implement it and then figure out that was not the best possible :w00t:;. We need to spend more time in figuring out, by going through the other search results and figuring out which would be a possible solution.

Hunting and Gathering

Rodney Landrum — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:11:42 GMT

Comments posted to this topic are about the item [B]Hunting and Gathering[/B]