03Nov 2008 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Great Article on DBA-Developer Conflict

nHibernate, Object Relational Mapping, T-SQL
What a great way to phrase the issue. I love the concept of the people-people impedence mismatch. We're going through it pretty regularly where I work. Our developers are convinced that using an ORM tool, in this case nHibernate, they're eliminating all the problems with the database because they're taking complete control of the database through nHibernate. All code will be on their side of the fence, no more messy stored procedures. All data structures will look like their objects, no more having to figure out those silly JOINS. Best of all, by setting all this up, no more messing with those stupid and obnoxious DBA's. Unfortunately, they're still planning on object persistance (don't call it data storage) inside of a SQL Server database... Um, guys, you haven't eliminated a…
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31Oct 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

VSTSDBE RC0 Install

Tools, Visual Studio
I've downloaded and started the install. The first screen I'm seeing is not filling me with confidence. The executable that is currently running is called "DBProRepair.exe" However, the installed completed without any issues. Just for giggles, I tried opening my PASS presentation (created on CTP 17). If it worked, I wouldn't have to recode. Ah, well, no joy. Not that I expected any. Oh, but the Conversion Report that comes up afterwards is very informative. Reverse engineer against the AdventureWorks2008 database went off without a hitch. All the objects imported into the database with no issues too. So far, so good. Created all the projects. No issues. I'm configuring for a deployment now. We'll see how that goes. Builds worked fine. I forgot to change the deploy action the first…
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31Oct 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Visual Studio Team System Database Edition GDR RC

Tools, Visual Studio
I'm a bit late to notice this, but Gert Drapers announced on Monday that the release candidate for VSTSDBE, or good ole VSDB as I've decided to call it, is now available. I figured they'd do something during the Professional Developers Conference (where supposedly a new printing of my book was being given out). Now I need to get on the stick & upgrade my virtual... maybe. According to the post, functionality hasn't changed. Maybe I should just leave everything alone on my machine until after PASS... Nah! I'll post progress for the uninstall, the install and the recreation of the compound project.
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30Oct 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Procedure Cache and Dynamic Management Views

SQL Server, T-SQL
I'm just going through the chapter on the procedure cache in the new book and I'm having a blast playing with the dynamic management views and functions that let you access the procedure cache. It's just too much fun and way too easy to get detailed information about the queries in the system, not like the old days. First, you can access the cache itself with the DMV, sys.dm_exec_cached_plans. This shows some of the data describing the plan in cache, but most importantly it provides the plan_handle. You need this for other joins later. You can also use sys.dm_exec_query_stats to get aggregated performance statistics about the plan. It also has the plan_handle and two things new to SQL Server 2008, the query_hash and the query_plan_hash, also known as query fingerprints.…
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29Oct 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Twitter?

Misc
After much discussion in a set of emails between some of the more dangerous people that attend the PASS conference, I've decided to create a Twitter account. I created it under my name for the time being. I may blow it up later & go with something else. I'm not sure. I still don't quite get the point of this one, but I'm hooked in now. If you're interested in "following" me (like I could lead you anywhere), click here.
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27Oct 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Andy Warren for PASS Board?

PASS
Andy posted the question more than a week ago. I need to pay more attention to his blog. In my opinion, the answer isn't yes and it isn't hell yes. It's **** YES! For cryin' out loud! I totally respect his feelings of being overwhelmed and busy. I'm there too. I've completely overcomitted, so I understand. But Andy Warren just strikes me as one of those really smart, capable guiys. You know who they are. They walk in to situations and things just improve. I think he can do two things, only one of which I could do. I think he'll help PASS deliver on it's promise, working with the other board members. I also think he's likely to have a few good ideas (something I'm extremely short on) that…
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24Oct 2008 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Amazingly Stupid Query

T-SQL
I have to share this one. I'm working on a set of queries, tuning them. They're all following a similar pattern. They're passing in XML data sets which are then shredded into a temporary table. Once that's done, the temp table is used in a series of joins to other tables to return the data. Some of the queries were missing indexes, some were structured a bit poorly, but overall, it was pretty standard stuff. Until... I ran a query that looked, at first glance, the same as the rest. When I looked at the execution plan, I saw a warning symbol, one of those little exclamation points on an operator. I figured, based on the other issues with this database, that it was just some out of date or…
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22Oct 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Server 2008 PowerShell Mini-Shell

PowerShell
I went right back to working on learning PowerShell after the last blog post. I no more than get started when I stumble across the explanation for the mini-shell used by SQL Server 2008. It makes sense and should be read. I still don't know enough about how PowerShell works to get all miffed over Microsofts (minor?) error, but I'm glad that they're aware of the dirt they kicked up.
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