Data Management - Latest Comments

Eli Weinstock-Herman (tarwn) [Member] in response to: SQL Is Hard

Eli Weinstock-Herman (tarwn) [Member] — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:42:15 +0000

Fabien T: Thanks for the feedback. I'm torn on the first one because I am also using the list of exercises as a visualization of the progress you're making, I'll think on it some more and see if I can find a way to get both. I like the visualization idea, I had considered using them in individual exercises later on, but having one for the involved tables all along would be useful. I'm adding the defined regions for the text block to the list too, I need to work out how to implement it without losing too much vertical space or making it too busy, but I agree some uniformity there would help break up the big wall of text and make it easier to consume.

Walter: Thanks, I have a version number in the bottom right that I stamp on from the build process, I'll add in the date as well. I've also started using the @sqlishard twitter account to announce updates, I'll do a follow-up post shortly with more information, as several people have asked for ways to stay up to know when exercises or features are added.

Philip: But if I had named it SQLisDifficult it would have been harder to type ;)

Philip Blignaut [Visitor] in response to: SQL Is Hard

Philip Blignaut [Visitor] — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:01:21 +0000

Nice article, but I am often amused by people not knowing the difference between "hard" and "difficult". Granite might me referred to as hard and cotton wool might be referred to as soft, whereas applied mathemactics would be difficult for most 5 year olds to master. The opposite of "easy" is not "hard"; it is "difficult". How difficult is that to remember? :-)

Walter Kiess [Visitor] in response to: SQL Is Hard

Walter Kiess [Visitor] — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:13:56 +0000

Excellent work! I would suggest you put a date last updated somewhere on the page so we can tell how old the site is and when updates are done. Also, I don't mind the "raw" interface at all. All that typing is good for memory retention. Can't wait for an update to this site.

wyscavern [Member] in response to: Create XML Files Out Of SQL Server With SSIS And FOR XML Syntax

wyscavern [Member] — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:28:51 +0000

Hello,
I am new to the blog...and SSIS. I have tried all of the above. And I now get a file that says System._ComObject. Before I was getting one that said had the begining tags I needed (opening and closing roots). But no information. Each time I would change one thing I would get a million errors...so. Now I don't know what works and what does not. So the actual XML file I need I have a SQL script for...and the XML file comes out perfect for my needs. But I don't know how to save it and then be able to move it to a share drive, so that the information contained insided can be uploaded to another application...which REQUIRES XML Explicit format.
Can you help?
Nicole Wyscaver

Marco [Visitor] in response to: SQL Server 2008 Proximity Search With The Geography Data Type

Marco [Visitor] — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:28:28 +0000

This worked for the US values but I tried to apply the same logic and scripts to create a proximity lookup for Canada (I used the CA.txt file) and I got an error stating that latitude had to be in the range -90 to 90. This affects about 30% of the addresses in Canada.
How is this possible when the ranges are supposed to be -180 to 180? If anyone knows why I am getting this error, please let me know. Thank you.

Koen Verbeeck [Member] in response to: How I prepared myself for the MCSE certification

Koen Verbeeck [Member] — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:30:33 +0000

@Sas: sure. You can take the exams in any order you want. However, you can only get the MCSE certification if you also get the MCSA certification.

So taking only the 70-466 exam without doing any other exam is pointless regarding certifications.

Sas [Visitor] in response to: How I prepared myself for the MCSE certification

Sas [Visitor] — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:53:57 +0000

Hey.. Congratulation..
I want to know can I directly write 70-466 exam without writting 70-461,70-462,70-463.

Fabien T. [Visitor] in response to: SQL Is Hard

Fabien T. [Visitor] — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:03:13 +0000

Nice idea, and a clean/cool realisation.

A few more ideas/comments that come up to my mind after a few moments with your app:

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1/ The menu on the could easily be hidden.
Once you start on an exercise, maybe you'll follow one after another, no need to have that menu in this case (maybe just a reminder that pops up to see where you are, but no need to eat a third of the screen)

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2/ Let the user have a look at the model.
Present the user with a graph representing the model, give an overview and sample data.
Without a clear context, exercises become unecessary hard, and a bit too abstract.
A picture is worth a thousands words
This could also be a great opportunity to introduce data modeling, how and why we need relations between tables (eg: for users coming from excel/access who tend to put all data in a flat format)

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3/ Make instruction clear.
The text block is a bit too uniform.
User needs to see clearly the 3 sections:
- Explanations
- Example
- Exercise
Maybe use some folding panels to make a clear separation (although it woulb be cool to be able to see all three at once)
Emphasis on the text elements that matter in the exercise summary (use bold text and/or color to highlight table names and column names, much like Zelda games)
Following point #2, exercises could also provide a sample of the expected result data, this could be really useful for LEFT/RIGHT joins examples (eg: for an hypotetical RIGHT JOIN exercise, show all rows resulting from the LEFT JOIN exercise, and rule out the rows that are filtered out, helps the user spot the difference, what it really does)

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Keep up the good work, that's a nice initiative, and a useful quick start for users new to SQL

Note: maybe change the name, SQL is hard indeed, but haters gonna hate ;)

Jes Schultz Borland (grrlgeek) [Member] in response to: SQL University - SQL Server Reporting Services Configuration Files Overview

Jes Schultz Borland (grrlgeek) [Member] — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:57:28 +0000

Alex, I haven't attempted that change before, so I'm not sure what to tell you to change. Again, I'd suggest making a backup of the config file, making changes, and testing it - in a development environment first, of course.

Eli Weinstock-Herman (tarwn) [Member] in response to: SQL Is Hard

Eli Weinstock-Herman (tarwn) [Member] — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:19:06 +0000

chris: Thanks for the feedback :) I don't know anything about submitting to code academy, but there were a couple reasons I built this on my own such as not requiring registration.

4.0 does seem to be causing a lot of problems, it has the next highest error rate after 1.0 and 1.2 (which I just modified last night). 2.6 seems to be getting a pretty high rate of success (90%), so it's lower priority to tweak at the moment.

At least for now I am not setup for taking submissions, but given the amount of feedback I've gotten, I may setup a feedback site to accept submissions of both new SQL statements and other features like the certificate and training ideas. Still waiting for the morning coffee to brew, so I'll let that one simmer for a while.

I hadn't seen plsqlchallenge, thanks :)