Voice of the DBA

Tag: connect

  • Voting for Change

    Microsoft does listen to us. They’ve made a number of changes in SQL Server 2016/2107 in response to community votes and requests. The main way to make these is through Connect, though keep in mind that lots of items get filed, and I don’t know how much consideration is given to suggestions for improvements and enhancements. I’m sure a significant amount of time is spent tracking down bugs and attempting to reproduce them.

    The best way to work for change is to advocate your request and get others to vote on items. I’m sure there are hundreds, maybe thousands of good requests out there, and most of us don’t have time to review them. We’ll often vote only when we hear about an issue from friends or on Twitter. Even then, many of us place different priorities on issues, and might not vote for suggestions that we don’t find useful. However, attention does get votes, so let people know what you would like to see.

    That being said, there are a few that I ran across and thought would be worth mentioning. One that I think is an easy choice, and should have been included a long time ago is the ability to increase the number of SQL Agent log files. Just as we can increase the engine log file count, we ought to be able to do the same thing for Agent logs. Auditing and proper security should ensure we have plenty of log files for busy systems. Plus, this should be easy to change. In line with that, why not more system health session files?

    I like this one for hidden columns, which might be really handy for legacy code. What I’d really like is the string or binary data truncated error to be enhanced. I can’t, for the life of me, understand why this hasn’t gotten some sort of fix. It’s been lingering for far too long, wasting countless development hours. Maybe they could fix it with new virtual tables.

    There are plenty of other issues in Connect, some of which might be very useful, quite a few of which are silly. I still think shining light on some of these and getting more votes might change the future of the product. At least, that’s what I’m optimistic about.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Please Fix This–T-SQL Tuesday #86

    tsqltuesdayIt’s T-SQL Tuesday time, and this month is an interesting topic. The invite comes from Brent Ozar, and it’s designed to get you to look at SQL Server. I spent some time thinking about this one and getting a post together.

    You can participate as well. Just write a post on your blog, the second Tuesday of the month, link to the invite or leave a comment on their post. If you want to host, contact Adam Machanic.

    Better Checks

    This Connect item was submitted by Erland Sommarskog, and I think it’s one that is worth spending development time on. The title is Add optional checks for more robust development, and I think it’s a great idea. I’m a big fan of testing and ensuring that you meet standards, that silly mistakes aren’t being made in code, and in general, finding ways to improve developer productivity.

    I know that getting errors or failing tests are a pain, but these should drive you to change behavior. If you constantly code “select *”, then you want to get out of the habit. Tests, standards, or other checks are one way to do this.

    This suggestion from Erland, which has quite a few votes, is a good one. Getting some sort of warning from deferred name resolution, is a good thing. Having the ability to prevent, or ignore some of the issues, is important. I’d really like to see all of these checks implemented, with the ability to turn them on/off as needed.

    These don’t take the place of unit tests with something like tSQLt or automated testing, but they are a good start to helping us produce better software.

    If you agree, go vote , and perhaps we can get this implemented.

  • Lobbying for Change

    I ran across a note recently on Twitter from Adam Machanic. He wrote:  Just spent most of the day working through a subtle PK issue – 1 bad row out of 18M. Would have killed for this. The item in question was a Connect item, one with almost 500 votes. It’s a good one, and I’d encourage you to vote for it. I know that it seems many of these items are never worked on, but some changes make it into the product, so I’d ask you to continue to vote for change.

    When Connect was first introduced, Andy Warren and I debated the value of the platform. On one hand it made good sense to directly feed information back to developers, but on the other hand, it was likely that those items that got more notoriety or votes might get fixed, even if they weren’t necessarily good ideas. The popularity of an item doesn’t necessarily mean it’s one that should be fixed in the product first. We also worried about one of the big problems of the platform and that is that a tremendous amount of noise of entered and it becomes hard to triage the submissions.

    As I watch Connect evolve, I can’t help but think that it’s been mostly a failure from my perspective, with a few notable successes, like Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2005. There’s too much noise and too many items ignored. However I also do think that those items that get lots of vots do get more consideration from Microsoft. More votes doesn’t mean that the feature will get fixed, but I do believe the item gets talked about. (As an aside, please vote for more, final Service Packs)

    Personally, I think that raising awareness of possible suggestions or problems is a good idea. I’d love to see a top 10 list of Connect items from MS for consideration every month. Having them highliht some items they’re considering from the list might help focus attention from customers. I don’t think that’s likely, but I wonder if highly debated suggestions might be worth highlighting at SQLServerCentral. Would you like to see a Connect item of the week? Something you could vote on or even debate as a good idea? I would, and I’d consider adding them as a way to help improve the platform that I enjoy working on the most.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio . feed

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