Are the posted questions getting worse?
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To all my SSC Friends,
Happy Holidays!!! :smooooth:
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Happy holidays!
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP -
Right, I'm outta here... Merry Christmas to anyone who's still here.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverabilityWe walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass -
Is that your back yard? It is gorgeous. 🙂
I have pond I am fighting with to make the pond lilies grow. It is a struggle.
-Roy
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Roy Ernest (12/23/2011)
Is that your back yard? It is gorgeous. 🙂No, but I'll take that as a compliment. It's a 3D computer generated image.
My mother has a pond. Her fight is to stop the bullrushes and lilies from growing
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverabilityWe walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass -
Ask your Mom to put some Koi and Gold fish in it... They will take care of the plants..:-D They like eating the root of the plants..
-Roy
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all threadizens - I hope you can drag yourselves aways from your databases for long enough to enjoy it.
Tom
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L' Eomot Inversé (12/24/2011)
I hope you can drag yourselves aways from your databases for long enough to enjoy it.How dare you say something like this? That's the ONLY THING I have left! :Whistling:
Only half joking actually!
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A Happy and peaceful Christmas to all - and thanks for the help you have given over the years.
-------------------------------Posting Data Etiquette - Jeff Moden [/url]Smart way to ask a question
There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand (the world). There is no such thing as a dumb question. ― Carl Sagan
I would never join a club that would allow me as a member - Groucho Marx -
Lowell your posting of this link to assist an OP
TallyCalendar_Complete_With_DST.txt
Lowell -Fantastic amount of work - from a IT standpoint thanks for sharing - Glad you were willing to play Santa and give me this present.
For all other denizens of the thread - read Lowll's work it will be a great present for most of us.
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bitbucket-25253 (12/24/2011)
Lowell your posting of this link to assist an OPTallyCalendar_Complete_With_DST.txt
Lowell -Fantastic amount of work - from a IT standpoint thanks for sharing - Glad you were willing to play Santa and give me this present.
For all other denizens of the thread - read Lowll's work it will be a great present for most of us.
Nice indeed.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events -
bitbucket-25253 (12/24/2011)
Lowell your posting of this link to assist an OPTallyCalendar_Complete_With_DST.txt
Lowell -Fantastic amount of work - from a IT standpoint thanks for sharing - Glad you were willing to play Santa and give me this present.
For all other denizens of the thread - read Lowll's work it will be a great present for most of us.
Agreed... it's one heck of a piece of work. Nicely done, Lowell.
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
bitbucket-25253 (12/24/2011)
Lowell your posting of this link to assist an OPTallyCalendar_Complete_With_DST.txt
Lowell -Fantastic amount of work - from a IT standpoint thanks for sharing - Glad you were willing to play Santa and give me this present.
For all other denizens of the thread - read Lowll's work it will be a great present for most of us.
Wow... fantastic!
Much thanks, guys! And (once again), Merry Christmas!
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bitbucket-25253 (12/24/2011)
Lowell your posting of this link to assist an OPTallyCalendar_Complete_With_DST.txt
Lowell -Fantastic amount of work - from a IT standpoint thanks for sharing - Glad you were willing to play Santa and give me this present.
For all other denizens of the thread - read Lowll's work it will be a great present for most of us.
Wow... fantastic!
Much thanks, guys! And (once again), Merry Christmas!
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I have a serious question for my fellow Threadizens...
Background:
A couple of years ago, one of our own asked me if he could publish an article on how to build scads of test data. The reason why he asked me is because of the methods I use to build my usual "million row test table" for most of my articles and posts. Although the methods certainly aren't my idea alone, I asked that person and, in the process, everyone on this thread to not publish an article on how to quickly generate a large test table regardless of the method used. My reasoning was that being able to quickly create a million rows of test data separated the proverbial "men from the boys" when it came to writing code and that I preferred for "contributors" (folks that partook in reading our articles and posts) to learn it by actually participating in the forums rather than handing it to possible "non participants" (Oh!... I said "pants" :-P) on a silver platter in the form of an article dedicated to the subject.
The Problem:
It worked for a while. Lots of good folks picked up on the methods and now include large test data generation code with their posts and articles. The problem is (not only on this forum) that the number of articles and answers to posts that make one performance claim or another without any proof still grossly outnumber those that offer proof and I'm concerned about "newbies" and others being led in the wrong direction by hearsay and conjecture (just look at the number of people that readily embrace "counting CTEs" and While loops in splitters and other code). Example of such things are when people post "counting CTE" examples and say the performance is "good" or as in today's article titled "Pros and cons of six SQL table tools" ( http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/76673/ ) where the author makes the terrible claim that "While temporary tables are faster than permanent ones, they're still possibly not as fast as table variables". "Possibly"???? Seriously???? He doesn't KNOW that "It Depends"??? Of course, there was no code to prove any of his claims of performance for the examples he used which struck me very odd for an article that was supposed to discuss the "Pros and Cons" of the six different methods for doing the same thing.
I've also seen where some self-appointed SQL genius (apologies for the crudeness... I'm a bit ticked off about the whole thing) wants to demonstrate a high performance technique and then resorts to using a WHILE loop to create the test data. While most folks might not see a problem with the loop doing such a thing, I see unnecessarily complex, long running code that would turn off even the staunchest of performance-minded SQL Developers and DBAs. There are also those that recognize the problem with how long it takes to gen test data with a While loop and they've simply resorted to generating identical rows of test data which, of course, is as bad (or, perhaps, worse) as not having enough test data to make claims of performance.
In fact, IMHO, unsubstantiated and poorly substantiated claims of performance has become a bit of an epidemic in the SQL Community at large (reminds me of people not posting readily consumable data when they ask a question). It's become such a problem that I've had a bit of a change of heart on the subject of writing an article on rapid generation of test data.
The Question: (well, sort of :-))
I've been in contact with the original person (thank you, Bob Hovious, for your wonderful advice and thoughtful feedback) on the subject and he's all for it because, for reasons similar to the need for the "Forum Etiquette" article, we both see a real need to stop the nonsense of unsubstantiated (and, frequently, flat out wrong) claims of performance. Since I also previously asked all of you good folks to not publish an article on the rapid generation of test data, I have to ask... do any of you see or have a problem with me writing and publishing an article on how to rapidly build test data? My purpose in doing such a thing is to make it a bit easier for all of us to say, "Your claims of performance are unsubstantied without scads of test data. Please see the following article for how to do so and why you must do so."
Any and all feedback (even if it's an ad hominem attack, rant, or volley of high velocity porkchops... yeah... I'm really that interested in your thoughts. Just save some of the porkchops for the folks making unsubstantiated claims of performance :w00t:) on the subject of writing such an article would be greatly appreciated.
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)
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