Don't Create Workslop

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Don't Create Workslop

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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Points: 739703
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November 17, 2025 at 12:00 am

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004666 More actions · Answer 1

My biggest concern is people using it to do the things they don't know anything about.

A couple of recent examples that I've come up with are to ask AI 1) How to convert DATETIME2 to DATETIME and 2) How to convert a DATETIME2(4) to a DATETIME2(3).

Go ahead... ask any of the AIs out there. Can you see why their answers are dangerously incorrect? Most people cannot and that's why AI also gets it wrong... it's a "consensus engine" and it comes to the wrong consensus unless you're smart enough on the subject to ask it additional questions which you probably wouldn't ask because you didn't know the subject to begin with and that's why you asked AI. 😀

If you ask AI the two questions I posed, it will probably tell you to use a simple, straight forward, CAST or CONVERT. Can you think of all the edge cases (or even 1 for that matter) that will cause all hell to break loose as a "Silent Failure"? Again, most people that are asking AI for that kind of help might not ask the edge case example(s).

Until AI can challenge its own answer with "are then any edge cases", etc, you always have to know enough and how to test the answers. AI produces code to test the answers and it looks right but, again... it doesn't even think to try the edge cases.

To wit, I submit that AI is not AI... it's just a very powerful "consensus" engine that sometimes comes up with egregiously incorrect answers because the "consensus" of people came to the same incorrect conclusion.

p.s. The correct answers to both questions are incredibly simple once you realize what needs to be done both for accuracy and for performance. I'm just not posting the answers yet because I want others to have some fun. 😀

--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.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

David.Poole SSC Guru Points: 76267 More actions · Answer 2

I've just read a book called "There is no Planet B" by Mike Berners Lee. He makes a similar point about energy-efficiency schemes. The gist was that if you make something more efficient, people will use it more; therefore, your savings are not as great as anticipated.

When a resource is scarce, you husband it carefully. When it is abundant, you waste more.

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dplaut 49149 SSC Eights! Points: 891 More actions · Answer 3

This reply was modified 17 hours, 8 minutes ago by dplaut 49149.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 739703 More actions · Answer 4

Jeff Moden wrote:

My biggest concern is people using it to do the things they don't know anything about.
...

Is this any different than someone searching on Google and picking a random answer or post that doesn't give correct info?