October 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm
GSquared (10/31/2012)
On the other hand ... if anyone ever publishes "Trivial Pursuit, DBA Edition", they could come in very handy indeed!
Would you buy it? Or would you play it?
EDIT: wrong quote.
October 31, 2012 at 9:26 pm
George M Parker (10/31/2012)
Does anyone ever ask or get asked what ACID properties are?
On just about every interview I've ever been on.
October 31, 2012 at 10:22 pm
I like to ask a couple of easy trivial questions to get things started, and then ask one that a lot of senior DBA might stumble over. Just to shake things up.
What is the money data type used for?
What function can you use to get the current date and time?
How would you move a 2 TB database from one server to a server at a different site connected via a T1 WAN link with a maximum application downtime of 30 minutes?
October 31, 2012 at 11:53 pm
Michael Valentine Jones (10/31/2012)
I like to ask a couple of easy trivial questions to get things started, and then ask one that a lot of senior DBA might stumble over. Just to shake things up.What is the money data type used for?
What function can you use to get the current date and time?
How would you move a 2 TB database from one server to a server at a different site connected via a T1 WAN link with a maximum application downtime of 30 minutes?
The developer candidates I've been interviewing can't make it past your second question (SERIOUSLY!)
The answer to your third question is "Why would you want 30 minutes of downtime when you can do it in virtually 0 seconds?" 🙂
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
November 1, 2012 at 7:25 am
here's a link to a copy of the pdf that doesn't require his damn password.
boy that pissed me off for some reason.
oh, and some of his code example references the DECODE function, which is actually an Oracle function.
SQL would use a CASE statement.
sqlserver2008r2_cheatsheet_v1-01_unlocked.pdf
Lowell
November 1, 2012 at 7:39 am
Jeff Moden (10/31/2012)
Michael Valentine Jones (10/31/2012)
I like to ask a couple of easy trivial questions to get things started, and then ask one that a lot of senior DBA might stumble over. Just to shake things up.What is the money data type used for?
What function can you use to get the current date and time?
How would you move a 2 TB database from one server to a server at a different site connected via a T1 WAN link with a maximum application downtime of 30 minutes?
The developer candidates I've been interviewing can't make it past your second question (SERIOUSLY!)
The answer to your third question is "Why would you want 30 minutes of downtime when you can do it in virtually 0 seconds?" 🙂
Didn't I mention that it was on SQL Server 7.0?
November 1, 2012 at 7:42 am
Jeff Moden (10/31/2012)
Michael Valentine Jones (10/31/2012)
I like to ask a couple of easy trivial questions to get things started, and then ask one that a lot of senior DBA might stumble over. Just to shake things up.What is the money data type used for?
What function can you use to get the current date and time?
How would you move a 2 TB database from one server to a server at a different site connected via a T1 WAN link with a maximum application downtime of 30 minutes?
The developer candidates I've been interviewing can't make it past your second question (SERIOUSLY!)
The answer to your third question is "Why would you want 30 minutes of downtime when you can do it in virtually 0 seconds?" 🙂
Heh... you're spoiling part of the fun, Lowell. I was waiting for people to start showing up for SQL Server interviews that would explain how to use DECODE in SQL Server. 🙂
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
November 1, 2012 at 8:03 am
George M Parker (10/31/2012)
Does anyone ever ask or get asked what ACID properties are? I've been asked that one a number of times by non-DBA's grasping for interview questions. Whenever I interview DBA candidates, I am less impressed with what they can regurgitate than I am with real world scenario examples. I believe they call them "behavioral example" questions.
Molecular combinations of metalic ions with hydrogen weakly bonded, such that when combined with bases, they produce a salt, water, and heat. Many of them are caustic when disolved in an aqueous medium, but not all.
For example, oxyhydraic acid will disolve perfectly in water, but is so chemically stable that it will only interact strongly with a few synthetic materials, such as chlorine trifluoride. Despite this, because of other properties, oxyhydraic acid is considered by many to be a "universal solvent". When combined with nitric and hydrochloric acids, it makes "aqua regia", so-named because it's one of the very few chemicals that can dissolve (rust) gold.
Or I might be off-topic.... 😛
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
November 1, 2012 at 8:09 am
Love it, mind if I quote you the next time someone asks me that question?:-D
November 1, 2012 at 8:10 am
Go for it.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
November 1, 2012 at 8:11 am
GSquared (10/31/2012)
Theoretically, if I am ever asked that kind of question, I'd be inclined to answer something like, "I know there is an upper limit, but a properly normalized database should never approach that limit. If it ever does matter, I can look it up, but it's not something that's ever mattered to me yet."
So then what would be the maximum number of columns that a properly normalized database should have in any given table?
November 1, 2012 at 8:25 am
It depends.
November 1, 2012 at 8:27 am
George M Parker (11/1/2012)
Love it, mind if I quote you the next time someone asks me that question?:-D
Follow-up question:
What are the properties of brown ACID?
November 1, 2012 at 8:51 am
patrickmcginnis59 (11/1/2012)
GSquared (10/31/2012)
Theoretically, if I am ever asked that kind of question, I'd be inclined to answer something like, "I know there is an upper limit, but a properly normalized database should never approach that limit. If it ever does matter, I can look it up, but it's not something that's ever mattered to me yet."So then what would be the maximum number of columns that a properly normalized database should have in any given table?
As many as are needed to properly define the object being modeled by the relation (table).
Theoretically, that could be infinite. Practically, it's rare to go over 20 or 30 in my experience, and I've only ever seen one normalized table with more than 50 columns in it.
Denormalized data can get quite a bit wider, of course. But even so, if you somehow ever ended up needing to go past the SQL Server maximum columns per table, you could handle that easily by vertical partitioning. I've never seen that be necessary, but that's anecdotal based on my own experiences, of course.
Hence, since it's something that doesn't actually matter, I don't see a need to memorize it. More precisely, even if it does impact a design, it's trivially easy to work around it, hence, "doesn't matter".
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
November 1, 2012 at 9:14 am
GSquared (11/1/2012)
Molecular combinations of metalic ions with hydrogen weakly bonded, such that when combined with bases, they produce a salt, water, and heat. Many of them are caustic when disolved in an aqueous medium, but not all.
Only metallic ions? Now you're trying to mislead chemistry job interviewees too 🙂
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