Nick Doyle (8/22/2013)
I don't agree that it encourages sloppy coding. You need to know how a language works and be a decent coder to not be sloppy. I don't see how providing more user-friendly functions contributes to sloppy coding. It makes non-sloppy coders' lives easier.This is much easier/quicker than coalesce or:
ISNULL(FirstName + ' ', '') + ISNULL(MiddleName + ' ', '') + ISNULL(LastName + ' ', '') + CONVERT(VARCHAR(3), Age)
I'm definitely happy I no longer have to explicitly convert int to string. 😀
+1
In this case CONCAT also is faster than ISNULL(FirstName + ' ', '') + ISNULL(MiddleName + ' ', '') + ISNULL(LastName + ' ', '') + ISNULL(CONVERT(VARCHAR(3), Age),'')
Because you call ONE function and 4 parameters vs 4 functions with 8 parameters and ONE CAST.