There's a Lot to Learn From Even Simple Puzzles

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There's a Lot to Learn From Even Simple Puzzles

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Phil Factor

Posted Monday, August 10, 2009 9:37 PM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item There's a Lot to Learn From Even Simple Puzzles

Best wishes,

Phil Factor
Simple Talk

Post #768343

Jeff Moden

Posted Monday, August 10, 2009 10:35 PM

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Congratulations Barry! Now, I've gotta go see what the hell you did! Tongue

--Jeff Moden

"RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for "Row-By-Agonizing-Row".

First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column."

For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/

For better answers on performance questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/

Post #768359

Jeff Moden

Posted Monday, August 10, 2009 10:46 PM

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Phil and Joe, thanks for having that contest. There was a huge amount of participation, debate, and code comparison! I know you guys had to spend a heck of a lot of time wading through all of that and it's much appreciated!

Well done to all who took part, as well. Some really great concepts bubbled to the surface.

--Jeff Moden

Post #768363

RBarryYoung

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 7:12 AM

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Woo-hoo! Finally, my name in lights!

Thanks, Phil and Joe. You too Jeff. Smile

Fast though it was, my submission was far from elegant or simple. Despite our head-knocking and despite even the loop in it, I would say that Mike Ross's last submission impressed me the most for simplicity and elegance.

-- RBarryYoung, (302)375-0451 blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. "Performance is our middle name."

Post #768560

Phil Factor

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 7:47 AM

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It was a tricky competition to judge for several reasons. Firstly, the entries were of such a high standard. Then they evolved, forked and cross-pollinated. It was also interesting to see the mutual help going on. It was like watching a horse-race where the front-running horses harnessed themselves together and crossed the finish line together. Actually, there were horses everywhere since some people seemed to end up with three or more submissions.

Joe was very taken by the way that everyone had taken the trouble to read up on the theory of calculating primes and brought that knowledge to the task.

We certainly agonised about whether the use of the number table should have been taken into account in the timings. however, we felt that because Joe had hinted that we wanted contestants to use that, we felt we should take a broader view of the general presentation, portability, documentation of the code etc, as well as sheer performance, so it never became the key issue.

Well done to all the contestants; even the solution that I killed after it had taken 17 hours to calculate primes below 1000. It was fun to judge.

Best wishes,

Phil Factor
Simple Talk

Post #768596

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:02 AM

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I, too, was amazed by the response to this. My initial thoughts were that the 10 people that enjoy math and SQL would jump in and most would ignore it, but there is some great work in the comments there. When Phil pointed this out to me last week that there were 20+ pages of comments, I was stunned.

I think there is definitely something to learn, especially the thought process as people collaborated with each other to improve solutions.

Great Job!

Follow me on Twitter: @way0utwest

Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help

Post #768620

SwePeso

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:31 AM

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Congratulations Barry!
It's a good thing they accepted your late submission Smile

N 56°04'39.16"
E 12°55'05.25"

Post #768661

Phil Factor

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:44 AM

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I loved your routine, Peso. It was great to follow the forum postings, and see the way that you quietly submitted it but it seemed to take a while for the other contestants to see how radically it performed!

Best wishes,

Phil Factor
Simple Talk

Post #768672

RBarryYoung

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:44 AM

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Peso (8/11/2009)

Congratulations Barry!
It's a good thing they accepted your late submission Smile

True, and thanks again to you Peter for pointing out the bugs in my original solution so that I had a chance to fix them! Smile

-- RBarryYoung, (302)375-0451 blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. "Performance is our middle name."

Post #768673

SwePeso

Posted Tuesday, August 11, 2009 12:05 PM

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Thank you!
You did the hard work. I did nothing but finding some "edge" conditions for you to fix.

N 56°04'39.16"
E 12°55'05.25"

Post #768860

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