Home Uncategorized T-SQL Tuesday #21 – A Day Late and Totally Full of It

    T-SQL Tuesday #21 – A Day Late and Totally Full of It

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    T-SQL Wednesday“This ugly hack is only temporary,” you think. Six months later, a coworker curses your name, sacrificing a chicken to any deity that will help expedite your getting struck down by lightning, a school bus, or both.

    Crap code. We’ve all seen it. We’ve all created it. We’re all guilty. Yes, even you. Sometimes our crap is purposeful—the ugly, “temporary” hack. Sometimes we produce crap because we simply don’t know any better. But there is no excuse good enough. As professionals, we must strive to rid ourselves of bad habits. And the only way to learn the difference is to see lots, and lots, and lots of examples.

    That’s where you come in. This month’s T-SQL Tuesday challenge: reveal your crap to the world. Why is (or was) it crap? Why did you do it? And how did you learn from your mistake?

    I’m posting a day late, and the subject matter may require a bit of thought, so I’m slightly changing the rules—temporarily, of course.

    Here’s what you need to do.

    • Write a blog post talking about your crap. This doesn’t mean that your post should be crap. Two wrongs, in this case, do not make a right!
    • Your post must go live some time between 00:00:00.00 GMT and 23:59:59.99 GMT on Wednesday August 10, 2011
    • Your post must contain the T-SQL TuesdayWednesday logo from above and the image should link back to this blog post.
    • Make sure that a link appears in the comments section below, either via a trackback or a manual comment. I’ll take all of the posts that are reported and write a round-up.

    Even better…

    • Include a reference to T-SQL Tuesday (or Wednesday) in the title of your post
    • Tweet about your post using the hash tag #TSQL2sDay
    • Consider hosting one of these. Ask me how.

    Enjoy! Here’s hoping for a truly cathartic blog event.

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    Adam Machanic helps companies get the most out of their SQL Server databases. He creates solid architectural foundations for high performance databases and is author of the award-winning SQL Server monitoring stored procedure, sp_WhoIsActive. Adam has contributed to numerous books on SQL Server development. A long-time Microsoft MVP for SQL Server, he speaks and trains at IT conferences across North America and Europe.

    36 COMMENTS

    1. Rich and Nigel: the fact is that we’re ALL in that situation. What separates the professionals from the amateurs? The ability to be self-aware enough to KNOW that we’re in that situation!

    2. Adam makes a good point between armatures and professionals. As I understand it there are four levels of "understanding / progression"
      unconscious incompetence (You’re rubbish and you dont know it)
      concious incompetence (You’re rubbish but you’re aware and working to improve)  
      concious competence (You’re ok at it but you have to put a lot of effort in)
      unconscious competence(You’re very good and it just happens naturally without much effort)
      Just my tuppence 🙂  

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