Jeff Moden (1/10/2012)
Of course, you could also pre-process tables before they come anywhere near SQL Server but I've found that writing such code is a bit of a fright because you might not have set based, declarative tools such as are available in SQL Server to keep from having to write read/write routines with lots of loops and decisions on your own.
Actually, performing loops and tests in other languages is much easier. T-SQL is not that great a language in regards to either performance or feature sets. T-SQL's main advantage is that it has a database system hooked up to it.
I don't think you should give up on loops and tests just because T-SQL is not that great a programming environment, unless you're really just not that interested in programming in general.
/opinion