mere cat

SQL Server Oopsie

I occasionally get nasty error messages from web pages when some server-side processing has gone south. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I usually only see these kinds of errors on sites using Microsoft technologies, such as Active Server Pages or a SQL Server backend. I'm just saying.

I've been assigned some SQL Server responsibilities at work. Since my experience has all been with DB2 and MySQL, I am trying to get up to speed. In surfing around, I found SQL Server Central, which looks to be one of the biggest SQL Server sites. You would think that a site devoted to SQL Server would be run by people fluent in, uh, SQL Server. Apparently not. Try clicking on any of the columnists' names, and you will see this error:

I can't talk, though. There are plenty of mistakes right here on this site. I mean, I have a list and everything.

I've been working away on a small project, and the tool I'm using most, “Query Analyzer,” was a big disappointment. It's certainly adequate, but it's text editing features are almost nonexistent. Some features aren't really thought through very well. For example, error messages include a line number to help pinpoint the source of the error, but the number is not based on the number of lines in the file, it's relative to the selected text. That makes sense to Query Analyzer, since the selected text is what is being executed, but it doesn't help me at all.