Sorry, sloppy terminology. I do try to use correct wording, but I slipped on this one.

SQL doesn't materialise views when running queries. Views...

Andy Hyslop (5/28/2012)

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Don't get me wrong we do use views where appropriate I suppose I'm just a little more cautious these days (and maybe a little jaded ;-)) when it...

GilaMonster (5/28/2012)

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pdanes (5/28/2012)

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If I make a special view for each join, listing only the fields needed in that particular case, I will have no excess ballast, but SQL Server will...

Maybe not, but I often get that in response to...

Eugene Elutin (5/24/2012)

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P.S. There is an universal solution to stop queries running forever:

Ask electrician to connect your server room power supply via your floor light switch, so when the...

Okay, got it. Thank you both, maybe I was thinking about the error 8623 mentioned on that page. Not a problem in my case, there can never be more...

Oh? I didn't know that, and I seem to remember reading that multiple ORs are...

I sometimes feel like all I'm doing is learning new things. And as soon as I do learn something, it's on to some other project and what I just learned...

Matthew Darwin (5/11/2012)

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If no ORDER BY clause is included in the ROW_NUMBER() function, the row numbers generated are arbitrary. I should also say this will apply if you order...

So far, in my experience, the solution which has performed quickest for this kind of operation is the self join with a proper covering index, it just always seems to...

You can look up ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK functions in Books Online or Google

I am sure you will get lots of articles and examples on the same which can't be provided...

I tried it and I do get only three rows, but what determines which one is returned by the RowNumber function? Or rather, what does the RowNumber function mean? It's...

Thanks, Coffee, I did run across some examples on the web using 'OVER', but didn't really understand them. Your example looks quite clear - I will study it and try...

Good point about the duplicate maximums - I hadn't thought of that. It can't happen in this dataset, but in the general case it's certainly a possibility. I suppose you're...

Thank you, Gazareth, I do know something about indexing and such. If I get stuck on that, I'll start a new post. My question was about the -CONCEPT- of whether...