July 28, 2014 at 9:45 am
Lynn Pettis (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
Sean Lange (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
I'm looking at the replies in this very post. Diarrhea? Yes, probably "good natured fun" as probably seen by the threadizens, but from the outside looking in, SSC hates SO's enormous success and without knowing more, it looks "sour grapey," or alternatively, they're disrespecting your SSC ranking (which for petes sake would be even worse LOL).
Yes good natured fun that was spawned by me. As far as ranking I couldn't care less. I have posted a lot over the years. That has earned me a lot of points on here, and possibly some sort of respect based on that. I like to think that any respect for my skills are a result of those skills and not some arbitrary point system.
I think in your case if you'd have answered the cursor question first, and then said "then watch for performance issues as cursors on SQL Server are notoriously slow" or something along those lines, it may have fit better.
This to me sounds like the entirely wrong approach. You are suggesting that I should spend my time showing them how to write a cursor just so I can then spend more time to show them how not to use one? I am NOT going to teach somebody coding techniques that need to be changed just because they asked how to do it. That to me is not how a good mentoring system should work. I don't like the notion that the point of answering questions is to horde as many points as you can. The idea should be to help people learn and become better. That has been my approach here at SSC. I guess that is not how SO works.
The points actually work pretty well. Its a form of crowdsourcing, where the points come as a result of others posting their opinions about your presense on a site. SSC on the other hand generates its only rating based on the users own actions, thats why it takes manual admin intervention to remove spam attacks, and you also could get the occasional high rated users who are otherwise social malcontents who really need the boot out of here, and this is where peer ratings help. I agree that other artifacts can take place with point systems like SO but as long as you aren't actually doing spam attacks and are otherwise just participating in a socially acceptable manner, the points don't really affect you too much, its when they're really needed like in the case of actually hostile actions is when the lack of them really makes it apparent.
As far as cursors and RBAR goes, you have a valid point, on the other hand, there is no shortage of info regarding cursor performance out there.
Well, I think SSC is one of the most professional SQL Server sites this community has and we usually do a very good job of self-policing ourselves in an effort to keep it that way. Even the best of us sometimes fall and need to be held accountable for what we say and do on this site. Been there, had it done. The system usually works quite well.
One thing I can say that I find annoying about SSC is that we require a login to view articles. I have posted links to a number of articles on SO and people complain that it requires a login to view them. Not sure why this site requires a login to view articles or posts. I understand about posting but it stinks that it is difficult to share articles with people who are not users here.
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July 28, 2014 at 9:50 am
Sean Lange (7/28/2014)
Lynn Pettis (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
Sean Lange (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
I'm looking at the replies in this very post. Diarrhea? Yes, probably "good natured fun" as probably seen by the threadizens, but from the outside looking in, SSC hates SO's enormous success and without knowing more, it looks "sour grapey," or alternatively, they're disrespecting your SSC ranking (which for petes sake would be even worse LOL).
Yes good natured fun that was spawned by me. As far as ranking I couldn't care less. I have posted a lot over the years. That has earned me a lot of points on here, and possibly some sort of respect based on that. I like to think that any respect for my skills are a result of those skills and not some arbitrary point system.
I think in your case if you'd have answered the cursor question first, and then said "then watch for performance issues as cursors on SQL Server are notoriously slow" or something along those lines, it may have fit better.
This to me sounds like the entirely wrong approach. You are suggesting that I should spend my time showing them how to write a cursor just so I can then spend more time to show them how not to use one? I am NOT going to teach somebody coding techniques that need to be changed just because they asked how to do it. That to me is not how a good mentoring system should work. I don't like the notion that the point of answering questions is to horde as many points as you can. The idea should be to help people learn and become better. That has been my approach here at SSC. I guess that is not how SO works.
The points actually work pretty well. Its a form of crowdsourcing, where the points come as a result of others posting their opinions about your presense on a site. SSC on the other hand generates its only rating based on the users own actions, thats why it takes manual admin intervention to remove spam attacks, and you also could get the occasional high rated users who are otherwise social malcontents who really need the boot out of here, and this is where peer ratings help. I agree that other artifacts can take place with point systems like SO but as long as you aren't actually doing spam attacks and are otherwise just participating in a socially acceptable manner, the points don't really affect you too much, its when they're really needed like in the case of actually hostile actions is when the lack of them really makes it apparent.
As far as cursors and RBAR goes, you have a valid point, on the other hand, there is no shortage of info regarding cursor performance out there.
Well, I think SSC is one of the most professional SQL Server sites this community has and we usually do a very good job of self-policing ourselves in an effort to keep it that way. Even the best of us sometimes fall and need to be held accountable for what we say and do on this site. Been there, had it done. The system usually works quite well.
One thing I can say that I find annoying about SSC is that we require a login to view articles. I have posted links to a number of articles on SO and people complain that it requires a login to view them. Not sure why this site requires a login to view articles or posts. I understand about posting but it stinks that it is difficult to share articles with people who are not users here.
+1
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
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SQL RNNR
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July 28, 2014 at 9:52 am
I respect and admire all you guys for your professionalism, and often restraint, in dealing with all manner of questions. Steve does a great job of reining in those of us who sometimes are a bit too casual about it.
That said, I want to needle Lynn just a little bit about one of his pet peeves. Could I get a show of hands of how many people really hate starting a statement with a semicolon? (;WITH) and if so, why?
Is it just because the documentation uses the word "terminator" instead of separator? I'm one of those people who finds it much easier to read separators, such as commas, at the beginning of a line rather than at the end of a line. Functionally, it makes no difference other than when semicolons become mandatory, you'll always have to stick an extra one at the end.
Just wanted to ask this here rather than in a thread where a totally different question was being answered.
__________________________________________________
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller
Stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down. -- Stephen Stills
July 28, 2014 at 9:58 am
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
I like Stack Overflow, they've done a great job, I've lost count over the answers I've gotten there. I'm not saying they're perfect, but the amount of loathing they get from you guys is just not proportionate to any actual problems over there that I can see, so I'm wondering what the real deal is? Did they treat some of you in a manner that was determined to be below your expectations or something? Not fawn over the 5 digit SSC rep or something?
I like the site in some ways, and I go like English.stackexchange.com and writers.stackexchange.com. I've gotten answers from SO at times, but often it's hard to phrase a question well and as the edits come, the comments intrude, it becomes hard to follow the flow of the answers. If the question is beyond a simple if x do y, I find SO a tough format.
Plus some of the mods are plain a**holes. I especially love the "closed as duplicate" without any link to what question was the duplicate.
July 28, 2014 at 10:02 am
Lynn Pettis (7/28/2014)
Well, I think SSC is one of the most professional SQL Server sites this community has and we usually do a very good job of self-policing ourselves in an effort to keep it that way. Even the best of us sometimes fall and need to be held accountable for what we say and do on this site. Been there, had it done. The system usually works quite well.
<blush />
July 28, 2014 at 10:05 am
Sean Lange (7/28/2014)
One thing I can say that I find annoying about SSC is that we require a login to view articles. I have posted links to a number of articles on SO and people complain that it requires a login to view them. Not sure why this site requires a login to view articles or posts. I understand about posting but it stinks that it is difficult to share articles with people who are not users here.
We constantly debate this. We're reviewing it again now.
One of the original reasons was that advertising pays for site, and continues to do so in some ways. The newsletter is the most effective advertising, and the login helps grow that.
It's a constant battle to decide how to best run this site, limit advertising, but have effective advertising.
July 28, 2014 at 10:06 am
The Dixie Flatline (7/28/2014)
I respect and admire all you guys for your professionalism, and often restraint, in dealing with all manner of questions. Steve does a great job of reining in those of us who sometimes are a bit too casual about it.That said, I want to needle Lynn just a little bit about one of his pet peeves. Could I get a show of hands of how many people really hate starting a statement with a semicolon? (;WITH) and if so, why?
Is it just because the documentation uses the word "terminator" instead of separator? I'm one of those people who finds it much easier to read separators, such as commas, at the beginning of a line rather than at the end of a line. Functionally, it makes no difference other than when semicolons become mandatory, you'll always have to stick an extra one at the end.
Just wanted to ask this here rather than in a thread where a totally different question was being answered.
I hate it, and try to get in the habit of ending statements with semi-colons so I don't have to.
Note you can do this:
select somecol
from some table
;
with mycurs(somecol)
as
...
July 28, 2014 at 10:08 am
The Dixie Flatline (7/28/2014)
I respect and admire all you guys for your professionalism, and often restraint, in dealing with all manner of questions. Steve does a great job of reining in those of us who sometimes are a bit too casual about it.That said, I want to needle Lynn just a little bit about one of his pet peeves. Could I get a show of hands of how many people really hate starting a statement with a semicolon? (;WITH) and if so, why?
Is it just because the documentation uses the word "terminator" instead of separator? I'm one of those people who finds it much easier to read separators, such as commas, at the beginning of a line rather than at the end of a line. Functionally, it makes no difference other than when semicolons become mandatory, you'll always have to stick an extra one at the end.
Just wanted to ask this here rather than in a thread where a totally different question was being answered.
Semicolon is not a separator, it's a terminator. The proof of that is the MERGE statement which needs to be ended with a semicolon, even if it's the only statement in a batch.
What would happen if semicolons as terminators of every statement become mandatory? Would you add them at the end and the beginning?
July 28, 2014 at 10:14 am
Luis Cazares (7/28/2014)
Semicolon is not a separator, it's a terminator. The proof of that is the MERGE statement which needs to be ended with a semicolon, even if it's the only statement in a batch.What would happen if semicolons as terminators of every statement become mandatory? Would you add them at the end and the beginning?
No, just at the end. The reason people open a CTE with a semicolon is because the previous statement needs to be terminated. You can write a CTE without a semi-colon, but if someone adds a line of code above, you'll get an error.
July 28, 2014 at 10:14 am
Lynn Pettis (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
Sean Lange (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
I'm looking at the replies in this very post. Diarrhea? Yes, probably "good natured fun" as probably seen by the threadizens, but from the outside looking in, SSC hates SO's enormous success and without knowing more, it looks "sour grapey," or alternatively, they're disrespecting your SSC ranking (which for petes sake would be even worse LOL).
Yes good natured fun that was spawned by me. As far as ranking I couldn't care less. I have posted a lot over the years. That has earned me a lot of points on here, and possibly some sort of respect based on that. I like to think that any respect for my skills are a result of those skills and not some arbitrary point system.
I think in your case if you'd have answered the cursor question first, and then said "then watch for performance issues as cursors on SQL Server are notoriously slow" or something along those lines, it may have fit better.
This to me sounds like the entirely wrong approach. You are suggesting that I should spend my time showing them how to write a cursor just so I can then spend more time to show them how not to use one? I am NOT going to teach somebody coding techniques that need to be changed just because they asked how to do it. That to me is not how a good mentoring system should work. I don't like the notion that the point of answering questions is to horde as many points as you can. The idea should be to help people learn and become better. That has been my approach here at SSC. I guess that is not how SO works.
The points actually work pretty well. Its a form of crowdsourcing, where the points come as a result of others posting their opinions about your presense on a site. SSC on the other hand generates its only rating based on the users own actions, thats why it takes manual admin intervention to remove spam attacks, and you also could get the occasional high rated users who are otherwise social malcontents who really need the boot out of here, and this is where peer ratings help. I agree that other artifacts can take place with point systems like SO but as long as you aren't actually doing spam attacks and are otherwise just participating in a socially acceptable manner, the points don't really affect you too much, its when they're really needed like in the case of actually hostile actions is when the lack of them really makes it apparent.
As far as cursors and RBAR goes, you have a valid point, on the other hand, there is no shortage of info regarding cursor performance out there.
Well, I think SSC is one of the most professional SQL Server sites this community has and we usually do a very good job of self-policing ourselves in an effort to keep it that way. Even the best of us sometimes fall and need to be held accountable for what we say and do on this site. Been there, had it done. The system usually works quite well.
Ha! Not me! I'm an SSIS god and I bow to no-one!
Right?
(sarcasm intended :-))
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
July 28, 2014 at 10:15 am
The Dixie Flatline (7/28/2014)
I respect and admire all you guys for your professionalism, and often restraint, in dealing with all manner of questions. Steve does a great job of reining in those of us who sometimes are a bit too casual about it.That said, I want to needle Lynn just a little bit about one of his pet peeves. Could I get a show of hands of how many people really hate starting a statement with a semicolon? (;WITH) and if so, why?
Is it just because the documentation uses the word "terminator" instead of separator? I'm one of those people who finds it much easier to read separators, such as commas, at the beginning of a line rather than at the end of a line. Functionally, it makes no difference other than when semicolons become mandatory, you'll always have to stick an extra one at the end.
Just wanted to ask this here rather than in a thread where a totally different question was being answered.
; belongs at the end of every statement. Period. Next discussion please 😀
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
July 28, 2014 at 10:20 am
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
SQLRNNR (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
Ed Wagner (7/28/2014)
SQLRNNR (7/27/2014)
Jeff Moden (7/26/2014)
SQLRNNR (7/26/2014)
But the BS around rep just sucks.That might be where the word "Overflow" comes from. 😛
So they named it stack overflow because it is really just Diarrhea?:Whistling:
The last time I checked out stack overflow, it was just that. Maybe it got better since then, but I don't use it for anything so I wouldn't know.
I like Stack Overflow, they've done a great job, I've lost count over the answers I've gotten there. I'm not saying they're perfect, but the amount of loathing they get from you guys is just not proportionate to any actual problems over there that I can see, so I'm wondering what the real deal is? Did they treat some of you in a manner that was determined to be below your expectations or something? Not fawn over the 5 digit SSC rep or something?
Glad you like SO.
I have seen roughly 50% of the answers to be wrong over there. You can't fix that unless you have asked a question. Why ask a question just to get rep? All that says is the rep is a game to play.
Rep is worthless. SSC points are worthless and I could really care less about that stuff because it doesn't translate to anything for anybody else.
But why take this to the personal attack level? I didn't see anybody attack you personally or directly. People reading the series of entries should be able to understand that it is good natured fun. If that is not obvious enough, then I apologize for the word assimilation.
Good grief, the ol "personal attack" meme again. Thats fine, have at it.
Well, if you don't like that meme, don't get personal. It's quite easy 😉
Your posts could be read as we're all a bunch of old grumpy SSC fanatics (mostly true for most people here :-P) who like to take a dump on the new shiny kid on the block, SO.
Personally I don't think any of "us" is jealous over SO. SSC is a totally different site - a forum - while SO is a Q&A site with same "gamification". Here at SSC discussions are encouraged, advice is given and people can be mentored. At SO, well euhm, not 😀 But SO is great for straightforward questions and answers, where not too much debate is necessary.
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
July 28, 2014 at 10:39 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/28/2014)
Luis Cazares (7/28/2014)
Semicolon is not a separator, it's a terminator. The proof of that is the MERGE statement which needs to be ended with a semicolon, even if it's the only statement in a batch.What would happen if semicolons as terminators of every statement become mandatory? Would you add them at the end and the beginning?
No, just at the end. The reason people open a CTE with a semicolon is because the previous statement needs to be terminated. You can write a CTE without a semi-colon, but if someone adds a line of code above, you'll get an error.
I understand that, that's why I asked based on Dixie's statement which I quoted. 😉
July 28, 2014 at 10:45 am
I personally would do it like this
;Statement1
;Statement2
;Statement3
; -- yes, one left over
Why? Because even with indentation, semicolons can get lost over on the right side of a long line.
Putting them at the start of each line on the left makes it much easier to see where a new statement is beginning. Also, if a statement needs to be expanded (ex: adding an ORDER BY clause or adding more ANDs to a WHERE clause), you don't have to worry about moving the existing semicolon at the start of the next statement.
I realize that I'm in the minority on this, and that it rises to an almost religious disagreement, but functionally, this format appears to have some advantages. I'd like to understand the fervor that leads to such emotional responses on this topic 😉
__________________________________________________
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller
Stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down. -- Stephen Stills
July 28, 2014 at 10:51 am
Lynn Pettis (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
Sean Lange (7/28/2014)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (7/28/2014)
I'm looking at the replies in this very post. Diarrhea? Yes, probably "good natured fun" as probably seen by the threadizens, but from the outside looking in, SSC hates SO's enormous success and without knowing more, it looks "sour grapey," or alternatively, they're disrespecting your SSC ranking (which for petes sake would be even worse LOL).
Yes good natured fun that was spawned by me. As far as ranking I couldn't care less. I have posted a lot over the years. That has earned me a lot of points on here, and possibly some sort of respect based on that. I like to think that any respect for my skills are a result of those skills and not some arbitrary point system.
I think in your case if you'd have answered the cursor question first, and then said "then watch for performance issues as cursors on SQL Server are notoriously slow" or something along those lines, it may have fit better.
This to me sounds like the entirely wrong approach. You are suggesting that I should spend my time showing them how to write a cursor just so I can then spend more time to show them how not to use one? I am NOT going to teach somebody coding techniques that need to be changed just because they asked how to do it. That to me is not how a good mentoring system should work. I don't like the notion that the point of answering questions is to horde as many points as you can. The idea should be to help people learn and become better. That has been my approach here at SSC. I guess that is not how SO works.
The points actually work pretty well. Its a form of crowdsourcing, where the points come as a result of others posting their opinions about your presense on a site. SSC on the other hand generates its only rating based on the users own actions, thats why it takes manual admin intervention to remove spam attacks, and you also could get the occasional high rated users who are otherwise social malcontents who really need the boot out of here, and this is where peer ratings help. I agree that other artifacts can take place with point systems like SO but as long as you aren't actually doing spam attacks and are otherwise just participating in a socially acceptable manner, the points don't really affect you too much, its when they're really needed like in the case of actually hostile actions is when the lack of them really makes it apparent.
As far as cursors and RBAR goes, you have a valid point, on the other hand, there is no shortage of info regarding cursor performance out there.
Well, I think SSC is one of the most professional SQL Server sites this community has and we usually do a very good job of self-policing ourselves in an effort to keep it that way. Even the best of us sometimes fall and need to be held accountable for what we say and do on this site. Been there, had it done. The system usually works quite well.
LOL there is no system, there is Steve the emergency fallback. Now don't get me wrong, programming is hard, and SSC is essentially sponsored and taking on a content management system project is no small matter and SSC is clearly posting some bang up content, and I've got no gripe here. However, when folks rag on SO the giant enormous success story over there that floods my google with information, you have to expect that comparisons might possibly be considered.
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