Coming In August

  • Steve Jones - Editor (7/11/2008)


    ... They're planing SQL 11, or about to, so I'd encourage Jeff to hit the MVP groups and post suggestions for the team there. Itzak will probably chime in as well.

    Lobby for a time data type that'll hold more than 24 hours! 😛

    -----
    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • Heh... they already have one! It's called the DATETIME datatype! What they really need is just a simpler way of formatting and they need to allow for the aggregation of time without an interim conversion. 😀

    --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)
    Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

  • They didn't really announce that they are releasing SQL Server 2008. They announced that they are adding it to the price list.

  • Jeff Moden (7/11/2008)


    Heh... I had the feeling you'd say that... I think all of that is more for formatting for folks that can't get over the 19000101 meaningless date because storing a time with the meaningless 19000101 date works just as well. Yeah... it is 4 bytes longer than the Time datatype, though.

    Which is what I do now. But why store a date when I don't need it?

    There's no formatting for display involved as the job start/end is a monitoring thing to check what time jobs are supposed to be done by and how often they overrun.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Michael Valentine Jones (7/11/2008)


    They didn't really announce that they are releasing SQL Server 2008. They announced that they are adding it to the price list.

    True, but the TPC benchmark expires on the 25th Aug (I think) if SQL 2008's not released by then.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • GilaMonster (7/11/2008)


    Jeff Moden (7/11/2008)


    Heh... I had the feeling you'd say that... I think all of that is more for formatting for folks that can't get over the 19000101 meaningless date because storing a time with the meaningless 19000101 date works just as well. Yeah... it is 4 bytes longer than the Time datatype, though.

    Which is what I do now. But why store a date when I don't need it?

    There's no formatting for display involved as the job start/end is a monitoring thing to check what time jobs are supposed to be done by and how often they overrun.

    One thing we can agree on... the problems that appear on the forum because of the new datatypes will be interesting. 🙂

    --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)
    Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

  • They'll certainly give us lots of questions to answer!

  • Not to mention that people will be able to wrongly post their SQL 2000 questions of both the 2005 and 2008 SQL forums.

  • Heh... I agree, Michael... there's always that. 😛

    --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)
    Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

  • Jeff Moden (7/11/2008)


    That's all well and good... I guess people who are unaware could use the help of the Date and Time datatypes. What I'm waiting for is the people who do an import of data and then trim the "CreateDate" to just a Date... and then their boss says, "I need an aggregate report by hour." There's a big "DOH!" waiting right there and that's what I meant by "lost data".

    The same people who forget about the time element that you spoke of are the same one's who are going to get their pants pulled down by such an oversight. It's so easy to make a calculated column to split Date and Time... I wish Microsoft had focused their efforts on making aggregates work more correctly with OVER to allow for such things as set based running totals and the like.

    I agree with you completely, yet I am still glad we will have a separate date and time. There have been so many times that I need only a date and absolutely will never need a time, and this will make that both easier and more correct in that there will not be a meaningless time attached to it.

    ---
    Timothy A Wiseman
    SQL Blog: http://timothyawiseman.wordpress.com/

  • Jeff Moden (7/11/2008)


    One thing we can agree on... the problems that appear on the forum because of the new datatypes will be interesting. 🙂

    Absolutely.

    The number of ways to abuse a new feature > the number of ways to use it properly. We've seen it with CLR, we've seen it with table variables, we'll see it with new 2008 stuff as well.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Heh... as you well know, it doesn't have to be something new to be abused... look at cursors and While loops... look at people storing dates as formatted Varchars... people are constantly using a Mo-Ped to haul manure 😛

    --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)
    Intro to Tally Tables and Functions

  • Now, now, Jeff. We typically spread manure, not haul it. I think it's more like using a handheld grass spreader to distribute manure 😉

  • Jeff Moden (7/12/2008)


    Heh... as you well know, it doesn't have to be something new to be abused... look at cursors and While loops... look at people storing dates as formatted Varchars... people are constantly using a Mo-Ped to haul manure 😛

    At a previous job the main database, which grew at nigh unto a million records a day, every char field was nchar and nvarchar, with absolutely no need for unicode. Plus all of the date values were stored in nvarchars. Lots of fun to work with! And this was all done by a "consultant" who was paid probably 3x what I made: "That was what was generated by the code generator, so that's what I used."

    Sadly, I never got a chance to strangle him as he was in California and we were in Phoenix. 😀

    -----
    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

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