SQLServerFast

Bin packing part 6: Further improvements

Hugo Kornelis
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In part 5 of my series on the bin packing problem, I presented a method that sits somewhere in between the true row-by-row iterative characteristics of the first three parts and the truly set-based approach of the fourth part. I did use iteration, but each pass through the loop would use a set-based statement to process a lot of rows at once. Since that statement is fairly complex, I am sure that a single execution of it is far from cheap – but the algorithm used is efficient enough that the entire input set is processed after only a few…
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Principles of Modeling: the Concreteness Principle

Hugo Kornelis
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In an earlier post, I talked about the Jargon Principle, one of three principles I learned in 1994 and that have not only helped make me a better modeler, but that I have found to be very valuable in many other situations as well. Today, I will cover the second of those principles. The Concreteness Principle Again, not in the exact wording I learned it but paraphrased, here is “The Concreteness Principle”: “When communicating with the domain expert, the analyst shall avoid all abstract statements and questions and instead use concrete examples as the base of all communications; these examples…
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Principles of Modeling: the Jargon Principle

Hugo Kornelis
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In one of my previous posts, I discussed whether data modeling is art or science, and I concluded that, unfortunately, the current state of affairs is that it’s closer to art than to science, whereas I would like to see the opposite. And I think that the same applies to process modeling. Back in 1994, I learned about a methodology that managed to transition data modeling from art to science. As a result, I have become much more effective at creating successful data models. The root cause of this methodology is that it is founded on three basic principles that…
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Bin packing part 5: Set-based iteration

Hugo Kornelis
2 Comments
One of the most common techniques authors use to keep their readers interested is to leave them with a cliff-hanger. It’s what I did when I finished part 4 of my series on the bin packing problem – never intending to leave you all hanging over a cliff for almost three years, though that is exactly what happened. My apologies to everyone who has been checking my blog on a daily basis all that time, in the idle hope of finally learning that faster method I promised. For those of you had have forgotten what I wrote in the previous…
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Bin packing part 4: The set-based disaster

Hugo Kornelis
12 Comments
Almost a year ago now, I started a series of blog post on the bin packing problem. But after the first three posts, various reasons caused the research I still had to do for the fourth part to be massively delayed. It’s only now that I have finally found the time to finish my research and write up the fourth installment. After a nine-month delay, I can hardly expect you to remember what I covered in the first posts, so you may want to follow these links to re-read that: ·        The first post includes an explanation of the bin-packing…
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Speaking at PASS

Hugo Kornelis
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Are you planning to attend this year’s PASS Community Summit? There’s only three weeks left before the pre-conference seminars kick off, so if you’re not registered yet, now is the time to act! The session schedule shows two days with seven full-day pre-conference seminars each, followed by three days packed full of high-quality sessions – with four time slots per day, over three days, and twelve sessions in parallel at each time slot, you problem will not be finding sessions that are of interest to you, but rather choosing between them. And you will be able to see and hear…
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Data modeling: art or science?

Hugo Kornelis
10 Comments
When I started blogging here on sqlblog.com, I intended to write about stuff like T-SQL, performance, and such; but also about data modeling and database design. In reality, the latter has hardly happened so far – but I will try to change that in the future. Starting off with this post, in which I will pose (and attempt to answer) the rather philosophical question of the title: is data modeling an art or a science? Before I can answer the question, or at least tell you how I think about the subject, we need to get the terms straight. So…
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[OT] Alive and kicking

Hugo Kornelis
No Comments
Wow! Would you believe that it’s almost five months since my last blog post? How time flies. No, I have not forgotten about you. I know you’ve all been faithfully checking the site (or your feed) each day, maybe even each hour, to get my next post. What can I say? I’m sorry for keeping you waiting so long. The truth is, that I have been very, very busy. Lots of time has been spent on work (for without work, there will be no salary and hence no way to feed the family) and family (for why bother working hard…
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Let’s deprecate UPDATE FROM!

Hugo Kornelis
59 Comments
I guess that many people using UPDATE … FROM on a daily basis do so without being aware that they are violating all SQL standards. All versions of the ANSI SQL standard that I checked agree that an UPDATE statement has three clauses – the UPDATE clause, naming the table to be updated; the SET clause, specifying the columns to change and their new values; and the optional WHERE clause to filter the rows to be updated. No FROM or JOIN – if you need data from a different table, use a subquery in the SET clause. The optional FROM…
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Want a Service Pack? Ask for it!

Hugo Kornelis
32 Comments
Service pack 2 for SQL Server 2005 is already 11 months old. And there is still no sign of service pack 3 on the horizon. Why is that? Has Microsoft managed to release a perfect, completely bug-free product? No, of course not – with the size and complexity of a product such as SQL Server is, that will simply never happen. There have, in fact, enormous numbers of bugs been uncovered and fixed since SP2 was released. And roughly once every two months, a so-called “cumulative update package” gets released. The last one is officially called “Cumulative update package 5…
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Hugo Kornelis

Married, father of 2 children.

Awarded 13x MVP (2006-2016; 2019-now), in the areas SQL Server and Data Platform.

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