Tuesday, May 17, 2005
It depends
Tom Kyte posted an interesting discussion about Rules of Thumb (ROT). One of the lines in it that could have made my hackles rise a bit was
Emphasis mine.
It depends is one of the most overused sentences in the database world in my experience, It depends is fine so long as the speaker can say upon what does it depend. This sort of it depends is fine.
Its the It depends as a paraphrase for It might work, it might not, don't really know but I had this cient once who had great results .... that is a great evil. So next time someone says It Depends please reply, upon What? Remember in Maths (remove the s if you are American) It depends can be translated as x = f(a,b,c) if a,b and c can't be defined then you have a sure fire piece of woolly thinking.
4 Comments
It all depends. Think of some of the ROT you know about topics like gathering statistics, reorgs, access paths (there are people that will never use NOT IN, there are people conversely that will never use NOT EXISTS - because they had a 'bad experience' with one or the other. Neither is evil once you get to know them).Why didn't it, well the whole tone of the piece is, for me, summed up by the following quote right at the start
I say, it depends. <snip> ROT in the hands of someone with experience, with knowledge, with lots of background - very useful. They understand when and where the ROT applies.
Emphasis mine.
It depends is one of the most overused sentences in the database world in my experience, It depends is fine so long as the speaker can say upon what does it depend. This sort of it depends is fine.
Its the It depends as a paraphrase for It might work, it might not, don't really know but I had this cient once who had great results .... that is a great evil. So next time someone says It Depends please reply, upon What? Remember in Maths (remove the s if you are American) It depends can be translated as x = f(a,b,c) if a,b and c can't be defined then you have a sure fire piece of woolly thinking.
4 Comments:
you had me scared for the first paragraph!
I do try to follow my "it depends" with "for examples" -- else the "it depends" just leaves you ....... (hanging)
I do try to follow my "it depends" with "for examples" -- else the "it depends" just leaves you ....... (hanging)
Now a good writer would have left you hanging for at least 3 paras :)
The thing is I can see that you might get quoted, but I'm trying avoid mentioning the specific site I have in mind, as
"Tom Kyte (well known Oracle authority) notes that ' there are people that will never use NOT IN, there are people conversely that will never use NOT EXISTS - because they had a 'bad experience' with one or the other. Neither is evil once you get to know them'"
I *hate* "It depends" when unqualified, I love it when qualified (Jonathan is great at this)
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The thing is I can see that you might get quoted, but I'm trying avoid mentioning the specific site I have in mind, as
"Tom Kyte (well known Oracle authority) notes that ' there are people that will never use NOT IN, there are people conversely that will never use NOT EXISTS - because they had a 'bad experience' with one or the other. Neither is evil once you get to know them'"
I *hate* "It depends" when unqualified, I love it when qualified (Jonathan is great at this)
