Scripts

Technical Article

Stupid Coding Tricks: The T-SQL Mandelbrot

The bar for entry into CodeSOD is pretty straight forward: professionally-developed code that elicits that certain What The— reaction. Though there have been a few exceptions over the years, generally speaking, student code, hobbyist code, and amateur code need not apply. That said, I'd like to try something a little different today. Today's example is not technically professionally-developed, it's a Stupid Coding Trick.

"So I was bored at work one day," Graeme Job explains, "and wondered, what's the most useless thing I could do with my time without actually doing anything. Then it hit me. I could use T-SQL to generate... Mandelbrot."

Graeme continued, "Following is a single T-SQL SELECT statement that generates a text-representation of a Mandelbrot Set. The results are best viewed in text-mode."

(19)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2016-09-02 (first published: )

5,484 reads

Blogs

Moving On-Prem PostgreSQL to the Cloud: Picking the Right Path for Big Tables

By

Every PostgreSQL migration eventually hits the same fork in the road. The database is...

A Spread of Vacation

By

I’m off on vacation today. Which is a little weird as I just got...

How AgentDBA Identifies Backup Failures

By

Every DBA has a box like this. Sitting untouched for months. Nobody’s proud of...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

From SQL Server On-Premises to Claude Desktop: How I built a Full MCP Pipeline

By Cláudio Tereso

Comments posted to this topic are about the item From SQL Server On-Premises to...

Independence Day 2026

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Independence Day 2026

Independence Day 2026

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Independence Day 2026

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Independence Day 2026

In the original Independence Day movie (1996), what type of computer did Jeff Goldblum use to connect to the alien mainframe? Take a guess, don't look it up or ask AI.

See possible answers