Jeff Moden (7/9/2013)

---

Test Code...

DECLARE @Bitbucket BIGINT

SET STATISTICS TIME,IO ON

SELECT TOP 1000000 @Bitbucket=ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL))

FROM sys.all_columns ac1, sys.all_columns ac2;

SELECT TOP 1000000 @Bitbucket=ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0))

FROM sys.all_columns ac1, sys.all_columns ac2;

SELECT TOP 1000000 @Bitbucket=ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT $))

FROM sys.all_columns ac1, sys.all_columns ac2;

SET STATISTICS TIME,IO OFF

They all seem to takes turns winning but all are within just a couple of ms of each other on my Dev server at work.

As a bit of a side bar and as cool as it is, I prefer not to use the "$" sign trick... I already have people that have difficulty in understanding how the T-SQL behind even this simple thing works. I don't want to push them over the edge. 😀 Other than that, I don't have a preference but my fingers frequently type "(SELECT NULL)" due to some old muscle memory.