June 27, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/WFillis/sqlpromptintellisenseforsqlserver.asp
July 18, 2006 at 1:02 am
Test test test is right Wayne.
I installed the freely distributed version 1.0 of SQLPrompt on my machine, and it ran away with all the system resources, taking 99% of the CPU utilization. I had to deinstall it again, much as I liked the functionality, I couldn't accept the impact it was having on the performance of my machine...
David
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
July 18, 2006 at 3:39 am
I appreciate the effort the author has made to install and test the utility and write an article to inform his fellow Sql Server professionals.
But showing that the utility presents a list of column names after a tablename is used after the FROM keyword and next presenting the statement
select * from sysconstraints.id
Where <list of suggestions>
followed by the remark "I’m sure by now you can see the benefits of this tool if you are unfamiliar with the database schema." is of such poor quality that I had no choice but to rate this article as poor.
Heck, I was so confused by the authors enthusiasm that I started to doubt my Sql knowledge and tried to execute "select * from sysconstraints.id", thinking it might be a new shorthand notation for "select * from (select id from sysconstraints) c".
By the way: frankly, I'm dissapointed that the intellisense list in
select * from sysconstraints.id
Where <list of suggestions>
Starts with (or maybe even exclusively contains?!) functions instead of column names from the table after the FROM (or tablenames/aliases if more than one table/alias present). Also I would have expected the _Intelli_Sense utility NOT to suggest column names after a tablename directly following a FROM keyword.
In the end this article and David le Quesne's comment have been usefull: I'll wait for the al new version 2.0 of this utility before I'll give it a try.
Edit:
I noticed that a word of criticism is also in place for myself: I rushed into rating the article as poor and writing this comment after the "select from column" statement, which prevented me from noticing the "what to show in suggestion list" customization option. This could very well invalidate my remark regarding the function names in the list, but I am for sure not the person who is going to test this.
Edit2: Just noticed that this is the 2.0 version, so, I'll have to wait for the 3.0 version...
July 18, 2006 at 5:50 am
I ahd the same problem with it impacting my system. Plus it said it was a free download but after the eval it shut it's self off and was annoying that everytime I logged in it popped up saying "your evaluation of SQL Prompt has expired" ended up uninstalling. I like the feature as I like the fact I don't need to type (I'm a lazy dba).
I would try it again and gladly pay for the program if the bugs were fixed.
July 18, 2006 at 8:01 am
My company bought a license from the guy that did this before Red-Gate bought it. I was please with the last version 1.4 before it was sold. It did take some resources. I switched back from 2.0 to 1.4. Hopefully our licenses will be retroactive.
July 18, 2006 at 8:32 am
Hi Christopher,
It sounds to me like you've got the initial beta version of SQL Prompt 2.0 that went out some time ago. The release version is completely free and therefore contains no evaluation popup. My best suggestion is that you download and reinstall the version from:
http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Prompt/index.htm
Hope that helps.
Kind regards,
July 18, 2006 at 8:36 am
Thanks for the follow up Bart - nice to see vendors monitoring discussions about their products.
July 18, 2006 at 8:46 am
I'm having similiar slowness problems. When it is searching the database for a list of fields or tables to show, my cpu is tagged and it acutally slows me down instead of speeding me up. I typically have to wait 2-5 seconds before my cursor will move again. In that time I could have just typed it out. Also I find if I am not looking at the screen and just typing away, prompt may have put up its pop-up, slowed my system down and I chose something from the list instead of doing what I was typing.
Neat idea, but it appears to slow me down more than help.
Thanks Red Gate - hopefully the next version will get the lead out.
July 18, 2006 at 8:53 am
I just downloaded the newest version (2.0.0.0) and was happy until I read the comment from bnordberg about typing with their head down.
If I type in:
"select * from " and let the application list the tables to choose from, and select a table (Agency), it displays:
"select * from Agency", which is fine. And if I then add "where ", it pops up a list of field names, which is also fine.
However, if I am typing away and type in:
"select * from agency where ", the intellisense program lists all of the functions, none of the fields for the table "Agency". It is as if it is case sensitive. If i go back and replace the "a" with "A", it shows the table fields.
Guess I'll have to experiment with it. I love the concept, because I'm sort of a newbie to a lot of the sql syntax, and some of the tables I work with were not quite consistent with their field naming conventions (agencyid, agencycode, agencynumber may all refer to same data in different tables...).
Thanks
Steve
July 18, 2006 at 8:57 am
I have been using SQLPrompt for a while and still like it. It doesn't always work but I've learnt to work around it. The slowness is usually just when you open up a new connection. INSERT statements seem to produce a list of tables rather than columns of the table you are writing the statement for. I also get times when it just stops giving me options completely.
I wouldn't write it off completely though. It's a great idea and some features are really useful. If Red Gate can iron out the bugs it'll be worth paying for IMHO.
July 18, 2006 at 9:09 am
Bart,
Could you comment on license from the legacy version? I like this product and it has helped me an our developers do our job more efficiently. I am sure that some of the bugs will be worked out by you guys.
July 18, 2006 at 9:23 am
July 18, 2006 at 9:47 am
Tried it. Hated it. Uninstalled it. The look and feel is yuk. It looks like something that was written for windows 3.1. Maybe I didn't set it up right but it kept bugging me to log in, just when I was starting to write a bunch of SQL. It was more of a pain than a help. I would be interested in such a tool and would find features such as parameter order for functions like DatePart a benefit. It still needs some work in my view. I may take a look at subsequent releases.
July 18, 2006 at 9:53 am
Once of heard of this tool and the fact that in worked with Query analyzer and Ultra Edit made me want to try it out. But like many of the other responses, I found the tool to be rather buggy.
First the fact that the prompts work some of the time but not all of the time is rather annoying.
Also, when I prefix a table then begin typing in the "where" clause, SQL Prompt will bring up a list of all the columns rather then waiting until I enter the prefix. Once you press the dot it inserts the column that started with the same letter as the prefix (unless you type fast then it simply inserts the first column in the list). For example instead of "select * from TableA a where a.<list of columns>" I get "select * from TableA a where aColumn".
I've seen the performance hit mentioned before but after a few seconds it seemed to get better. Hopefully this will be improved in the next release.
So in the end not much time is safed by using this version because I must constantly undo and retype or check that not only if the prompt comes up but if it displaying the correct information. Maybe I didn't have it configured right but then again I really didn't want to spend a lot of time tweeking the tool just to get it to work correctly for a basic query.
I think the idea is great and will definitly revisit this when 3.0 is released, but even free is too much for me for the current version.
ds
July 18, 2006 at 10:18 am
I tried this roughly 2-3 weeks ago and found a lot of the same issues. Using it was extremely slow and it consumed a great deal of system resources. While it might help with database schema, one thing I like about intellisense generators is that they save me time in typing out long lists of columns, etc... This one definitely didn't. While I've been a huge fan of Red Gate's products in the past, I think this one needs to mature a little bit before I'll get all that excited about it.
Not to hawk another product here, but I was using ApexSQL Edit for a while which has similar functionality and seemed to be better performing. However that product had its own problems with memory leaks and stability in other areas. I'm wondering if they've fixed those yet.
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