APPLY

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APPLY

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Kick6Tiger SSCrazy Points: 2380 More actions · Answer 1

Surely it's reasonable for it to not to mean what it doesn't say? ...

I find this statement ironic since you are stating exactly what it's doing. It doesn't say every department, but you are assuming that is what it meant. Not trying to be unreasonable or nit picky...it was just confusing in it's literal form.

OCD is a blessing and a curse...

Aigle de Guerre!

TomThomson SSC Guru Points: 104773 More actions · Answer 2

jkoppin (10/8/2014)

In my opinion communication is the hardest part about IT because of things like this, where it is obvious to one person, and not to another

I agree with you there - communication is often the hardest part of IT.

because the wording could possibly have multiple meanings.

That does happen, but it didn't happen here: the wording has only one meaning, but some people will jump to the unwarranted conclusion that the speaker/writer has left out something he meant to say. That is perhaps the biggest reason that communication is difficult (and not just in IT), and the tendency of people to do this is one of the reasons that I sometimes write very verbose and pedantic descriptions of technical things so as not to leave any scope for such unwarranted assumptions.

Just go the extra 2ft and be more specific - it isn't difficult 🙂

It isn't difficult in itself, but if you combine it with a requirement not to make it look long-winded, over-pedantic, and boring it can become very difficult indeed - perhaps impossible. Why impose that difficulty on the speaker/writer instead of a requirement on the listener/reader to realise that no more or less was meant than what was said or written?

Tom

TomThomson SSC Guru Points: 104773 More actions · Answer 3

Meow Now (10/8/2014)

Surely it's reasonable for it to not to mean what it doesn't say? ...

I find this statement ironic since you are stating exactly what it's doing. It doesn't say every department, but you are assuming that is what it meant. Not trying to be unreasonable or nit picky...it was just confusing in it's literal form.

OCD is a blessing and a curse...

I didn't assume that at all - if the question says neither "and nothing else" or "and other things" it's appropriate to assume neither - as neither is requirement of the question neither is needed for the answer, so as long as the query returns the required department (IT) it matters not at all where it returns no other department, some other departments, or all the other departments. As there was only one query that returned the required department that was the only query that matched the question.

Actually I did assume something, but not what you suggested. The only assumption I made was that the question had a valid answer other than "it depends on what other data you have in those tables". From that assumption I could deduce that either when the question said "I have this data in the Employee and Department tables:" it meant "I have this data and no other data relevant to the question ..." or the final question "which kind of apply..." meant "which kind of apply will make the query return the IT department whenever the specified data is present".

Tom

Miles Neale SSChampion Points: 13147 More actions · Answer 4

Nice question and good explanation.

As to the discussion going on about the correctness of the question and answer, I find the wording correct for what was given as the answer and the results sets of the two apply options offered.

Had it said, which one returns the IT department only? The answer would have been neither. As it was worded, it was perfectly understandable, and offered a great learning opportunity.

M.

Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!