• I meant that (as a relative begginer - certainly in terms of Database Admin if not design) it's actually easier to be introduced to a topic quickly at a high level than have to work through a long article that's packed with detail, where I would probably not have had the time to take all the finer points in.

    As I'm not a DBA I hadn't even considered the issue of having to delete millions of rows at once. (I'm the person whos buggy code fills the table with rubbish, and haven't had to go thru the pain of taking it all out again... :)) However - today I've not only learned that there's a real performance benefit to deleting in batches, but I've also learned a great number of the finer points of actually doing so because of the discussion all you more knowlegeable guys have had afterwards.

    In my latest job, we've potentially got a lot of cleansing work to do, so now I can make sure your best practices are brought to the table when we do it.