Are the posted questions getting worse?

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Are the posted questions getting worse?

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Greg Edwards-268690 SSC-Insane Points: 20680 More actions · Answer 1

GilaMonster (10/26/2010)
Trey Staker (10/26/2010)
@Gail, how's that difficult contract going?
Difficultly.
Officially going to prod on Friday. Project manager getting lots of praise for delivering project on time. I'm expecting another crapping out session tomorrow because I missed a necessary column of data (trivial change)

Been there before too. Implemented a supply chain solution in less than a month that normally takes 3 to 6 months.

Project manager got a free trip out of it.

I got to find out the difference between the sales pitch and what the product really could do, and had to deal with it.

Vision - you will 2 sharp metal objects in easy reach.

Nightmare - you with splatter protection for you clothes.

Hope they dwell on the positive aspects - lots done in too little time, rather than nit pick.

Greg E

Roy Ernest SSC-Dedicated Points: 38780 More actions · Answer 2

Grant Fritchey (10/27/2010)
To the Threadizens/Threadites/Threadoids/Threadopians:
Please, make sure, if you're going to the Summit, you track me down and introduce yourself in person. Some of you I know already, Dixie,Jeff,etc., but some of you I've never met. I'm going to be all over the place, but I really want to meet you people for the first time, or again. If nothing else, I'll be working as a Amabassador for the keynote on Tuesday. Look for the tall bald guy in a red vest.

I will be coming and meeting you for sure. I would love to meet everyone. But there are some, I really would love to meet in person and one of them is you.

-Roy

Brandie Tarvin SSC Guru Points: 173108 More actions · Answer 3

Grant Fritchey (10/27/2010)
To the Threadizens/Threadites/Threadoids/Threadopians:

Wow, Grant. What a way to make the Threadophiles feel unwanted...

@=)

Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database AdministratorLiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/[/url]On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.Freelance Writer: ShadowrunLatchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.

GSquared SSC Guru Points: 260824 More actions · Answer 4

Tom.Thomson (10/26/2010)
Stefan Krzywicki (10/26/2010)
I was hoping to have a discussion of the different methods and maybe some links to documentation so I could read more on something I hadn't found much about. I hesitated going back to read when I saw he was the first person to comment on it, but I went back. Sure enough, he was throwing around opinion as fact so I figured I'd call him on it as politely as I could.
It looked to me like he was saying "this is the standard, so I do it this way" which is about as far as you can get from "throwing round opinion as fact" as is possible: it is in fact plain fact - what he says is that the standard is the standard, that he does it that way - the first is absolutelu true and I believe the second. DO you have any reason to disbelieve it?
I've taken cause against him sometimes when he's been being stupidly arrogant (which he does rather too often) but I reckon that here you are just banking on his reputation to have people agree with you that he did wrong where in fact he did right.
OK, he didn't reply yet: he may do so with a bit more time. Or he may regard your response as trolling - ask for documentation when he's referring you to the ISO standard on matters that are also well documented by Microsoft, as I'm sure he's aware you well know.

CELKO (10/25/2010)
Actually, you need to start using the ANSI/ISO Standard CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and not the old Sybase/UNIX getdate() now that we have it in SQL Server.

That's the first statement in his post. It doesn't say, "this is the standard, and it's therefor what I use". It says, "Actually, you need to start ...". That's not a factual statement, it's an opinion stated as a fact.

He then states that Convert() has "other problems", but doesn't elaborate on that. Then makes some statements about ANSI/ISO date formats, which are technically correct, but completely meaningless, because SQL Server date storage is actually numeric, and the "default display" has nothing to do with the subject at hand and very little to do with what he's writing about.

He then comes to the conclusion of what he'd use. That is the only relevant, factual statement in his post. And it's a statement of personal preference. Yes, he almost certainly does prefer what he says he does. But that doesn't in any way change the fact that he's stating an opinion, backing it up with irrelevant facts and opinions stated as facts, and expecting it to be treated as authoritative.

Yes, it's possible to roll your eyes, shrug and go "Well, that's Joe for you". But he's actually defeating the very crusade he's been hobby-horsing on for decades by making it repugnant to so many people, and by stating opinions as facts.

He's a troll. He himself has stated that his online personality is designed to upset and annoy people. The fact that he includes some potentially useful technical data in his posts doesn't change the fact that responding to him is, in essence, "feeding the troll". Which is really too bad, because he does know a TON of useful data about the standards, about SQL Server, and about the kinds of policies and procedures that people should follow. If he had diplomacy to match his expertise, he'd be even more of an asset to the general DBA community. As it is, he's a knowledgeable troll, and needs to be treated as such.

Read what he writes, but filter for opinion vs fact, and decide for yourself what's useful to you and what isn't. He's worth reading, you just have to avoid feeding the troll.

- 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

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 399278 More actions · Answer 5

Brandie Tarvin (10/27/2010)
Grant Fritchey (10/27/2010)
To the Threadizens/Threadites/Threadoids/Threadopians:
Wow, Grant. What a way to make the Threadophiles feel unwanted...
@=)

Oh crud! I knew I was leaving one of the genuses, or is it phylums, out of the list. Threadophiles are included as well. But none of those stinking Threadonians.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

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GSquared SSC Guru Points: 260824 More actions · Answer 6

WayneS (10/26/2010)
GSquared (10/26/2010)
Jeff Moden (10/24/2010)
Wow... thanks for the insight on SSIS, folks. I've mostly resisted spending any decent amount of time on it because of what I've seen. Thanks to other people's posts, it seemed that you had to write some bloody damned script for just about anything complex that you wanted to do. I kept saying to myself, "Hell, it's a lot easier to do that in T-SQL... I don't need to mess things up by getting yet another layer of stuff involved."
I guess I'll give it another look... maybe even a fair one this time.
I've built solutions that automated whole business departments in SSIS, and I haven't had to write a script for it yet. It's a pretty amazing product, once you dig into it a bit and get comfortable.
Gus,
Since you seem to know SSIS pretty well, I have a question for you. Is there a way to have a query that generates dynamic columns exported to an excel spreadsheet? The problem that I've run into is that in the Data Flow, you have to have the source and destination columns pre-defined... is there a way around this?
I've read about having a script that essentially generates a SSIS package on the fly... this is way too much complicated.
Thanks!

How dynamic?

I've built something that had four or five different formats, and I just used different connection strings to different sources for that. But truly dynamic isn't something I've done. I'd have to try it out.

- 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

Johan Bijnens SSC Guru Points: 135551 More actions · Answer 7

GSquared (10/27/2010)
...
Read what he writes, but filter for opinion vs fact, and decide for yourself what's useful to you and what isn't. He's worth reading, you just have to avoid feeding the troll.

You mean, it isn't mandatory to obey his commands ?? :hehe:

Johan

Learn to play, play to learn !

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but keeping both feet on the ground wont get you anywhere :w00t:

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Sioban Krzywicki One Orange Chip Points: 27770 More actions · Answer 8

GSquared (10/27/2010)
Tom.Thomson (10/26/2010)
Stefan Krzywicki (10/26/2010)
I was hoping to have a discussion of the different methods and maybe some links to documentation so I could read more on something I hadn't found much about. I hesitated going back to read when I saw he was the first person to comment on it, but I went back. Sure enough, he was throwing around opinion as fact so I figured I'd call him on it as politely as I could.
It looked to me like he was saying "this is the standard, so I do it this way" which is about as far as you can get from "throwing round opinion as fact" as is possible: it is in fact plain fact - what he says is that the standard is the standard, that he does it that way - the first is absolutelu true and I believe the second. DO you have any reason to disbelieve it?
I've taken cause against him sometimes when he's been being stupidly arrogant (which he does rather too often) but I reckon that here you are just banking on his reputation to have people agree with you that he did wrong where in fact he did right.
OK, he didn't reply yet: he may do so with a bit more time. Or he may regard your response as trolling - ask for documentation when he's referring you to the ISO standard on matters that are also well documented by Microsoft, as I'm sure he's aware you well know.
CELKO (10/25/2010)
Actually, you need to start using the ANSI/ISO Standard CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and not the old Sybase/UNIX getdate() now that we have it in SQL Server.
That's the first statement in his post. It doesn't say, "this is the standard, and it's therefor what I use". It says, "Actually, you need to start ...". That's not a factual statement, it's an opinion stated as a fact.
He then states that Convert() has "other problems", but doesn't elaborate on that. Then makes some statements about ANSI/ISO date formats, which are technically correct, but completely meaningless, because SQL Server date storage is actually numeric, and the "default display" has nothing to do with the subject at hand and very little to do with what he's writing about.
He then comes to the conclusion of what he'd use. That is the only relevant, factual statement in his post. And it's a statement of personal preference. Yes, he almost certainly does prefer what he says he does. But that doesn't in any way change the fact that he's stating an opinion, backing it up with irrelevant facts and opinions stated as facts, and expecting it to be treated as authoritative.
Yes, it's possible to roll your eyes, shrug and go "Well, that's Joe for you". But he's actually defeating the very crusade he's been hobby-horsing on for decades by making it repugnant to so many people, and by stating opinions as facts.
He's a troll. He himself has stated that his online personality is designed to upset and annoy people. The fact that he includes some potentially useful technical data in his posts doesn't change the fact that responding to him is, in essence, "feeding the troll". Which is really too bad, because he does know a TON of useful data about the standards, about SQL Server, and about the kinds of policies and procedures that people should follow. If he had diplomacy to match his expertise, he'd be even more of an asset to the general DBA community. As it is, he's a knowledgeable troll, and needs to be treated as such.
Read what he writes, but filter for opinion vs fact, and decide for yourself what's useful to you and what isn't. He's worth reading, you just have to avoid feeding the troll.

My responses were primarily a likely misguided attempt to get him to persuade. I was trying to say "OK, you've stated your preference, now persuade me!" Show me evidence, tell me reasons why you've stated what you've stated. I refrain from posting fairly frequently because I know how I do things, but I haven't done the research to back up what I'd be telling people with numbers and examples.

I was snarking about it here because his response was one of the two I expected: silence or rudeness.

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Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 738683 More actions · Answer 9

Grant Fritchey (10/27/2010)
Look for the tall bald guy in a red vest.

Or the hairy legs under a short ~~skirt~~ kilt

WayneS SSC Guru Points: 95461 More actions · Answer 10

GSquared (10/27/2010)
WayneS (10/26/2010)
Gus,
Since you seem to know SSIS pretty well, I have a question for you. Is there a way to have a query that generates dynamic columns exported to an excel spreadsheet? The problem that I've run into is that in the Data Flow, you have to have the source and destination columns pre-defined... is there a way around this?
I've read about having a script that essentially generates a SSIS package on the fly... this is way too much complicated.
Thanks!
How dynamic?
I've built something that had four or five different formats, and I just used different connection strings to different sources for that. But truly dynamic isn't something I've done. I'd have to try it out.

In the source, the #/type of columns remains same; column names change (depending on what year package is being run for). The changing column names need to be reflected in the Excel spreadsheet destination.

Edit: I can move this to a proper thread if desired...

Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes

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Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004514 More actions · Answer 11

Anyone got an idea how to track table changes. Server side traces, triggers, change tracking/change data capture not acceptable options.

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1011428-391-1.aspx

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
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spaghettidba SSC Guru Points: 105732 More actions · Answer 12

GilaMonster (10/27/2010)
Anyone got an idea how to track table changes. Server side traces, triggers, change tracking/change data capture not acceptable options.
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1011428-391-1.aspx

DBCC TimeWarp? You can know today the changes that will be applied tomorrow...

-- Gianluca Sartori

Greg Edwards-268690 SSC-Insane Points: 20680 More actions · Answer 13

Steve Jones - SSC Editor (10/27/2010)
Grant Fritchey (10/27/2010)
Look for the tall bald guy in a red vest.
Or the hairy legs under a short ~~skirt~~ kilt

Short is way too descriptive.

Greg E

jcrawf02 SSC-Insane Points: 24198 More actions · Answer 14

Brandie Tarvin (10/27/2010)
Grant Fritchey (10/27/2010)
To the Threadizens/Threadites/Threadoids/Threadopians:
Wow, Grant. What a way to make the Threadophiles feel unwanted...
@=)

yikes, that's a little too close to another '..dophile' word, I don't think I'll be claiming that as a title.

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How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]

"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."

jcrawf02 SSC-Insane Points: 24198 More actions · Answer 15

WayneS (10/27/2010)
GSquared (10/27/2010)
WayneS (10/26/2010)
Gus,
Since you seem to know SSIS pretty well, I have a question for you. Is there a way to have a query that generates dynamic columns exported to an excel spreadsheet? The problem that I've run into is that in the Data Flow, you have to have the source and destination columns pre-defined... is there a way around this?
I've read about having a script that essentially generates a SSIS package on the fly... this is way too much complicated.
Thanks!
How dynamic?
I've built something that had four or five different formats, and I just used different connection strings to different sources for that. But truly dynamic isn't something I've done. I'd have to try it out.
In the source, the #/type of columns remains same; column names change (depending on what year package is being run for). The changing column names need to be reflected in the Excel spreadsheet destination.
Edit: I can move this to a proper thread if desired...

Take Brandie's advice, generate your excel file dynamically. with an Excel destination, you just need to have a SQL task (Connection Type = EXCEL) to create your column names based on your requirements. Treats it like a table that is named whatever your sheet is named.

Note that Excel columns will need to be unicode, and use the tick mark (top-left on the tilde key, not sure what the official name is), not single quote, for text. That annoyed me for a while before I got it working.

---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]

"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."