• da-zero (10/11/2010)


    paul.goldstraw (10/11/2010)


    Well it looks like i'm going to be in the minority by saying i think it was a poor question. I got it wrong because I was expecting, funny enough, a question on identity.

    The fact that the titel of the question isn't highly correlated with the question itself, doesn't make it a poor question. I think that this question has alerted many people of the fact that they should be careful with table variables and transactions, thus making it a valuable question (but nothing to do with Identity, true true).

    paul.goldstraw (10/11/2010)


    Sour grapes maybe, but I think questions should be about testing someone's knowledge, not their powers of observation.

    Well, the knowledge tested was table variables vs transactions. It is not really a tricky question because it is not just the @ sign that can tell you it is a table variable, but also the fact that a declare statement is used instead of a create table statement. Someone's observation skills must not be that strong (or reading the question with not enough attention) to miss that.

    No, my observation skills aren't brilliant at 9am on a Monday, but I simply think they shouldn't have to be. Topics have titles and tags describing what they are testing for a reason. This question doesn't test anything at all to do with identities. It's not that it's more about table variables and transactions than identities, it's all about them. That is the reason why I believe it to be a poor question, not because of the question itself but because in the structure it is set it, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the topic to bear some relation to the question, which this does not.

    Just my opinion. Just a shame that the lesson I learned from this was not re. temp tables and table variables but to check whether the question even relates to the topic.