The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Tim G:
Matthew:
Also, you could deduce certain things from somebody thinking that talking about their past in the adult film industry is appropriate in a job interview.
Why isn't it, exactly? I mean, I don't talk much about my high-school job history as a arcade game repairman in my interviews because it's not remotely relevant to what I do. But if I were asked something that brought it up, I might mention it in passing. Why should it be any different in this case?

Being able to follow cultural conventions around taboo subjects is an important social skill, regardless of whether that taboo makes sense. People who lack important social skills don't make great employees.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

frits:
History Agent:
Capt. Obvious:
Germany doesn't have a large group of visually distinctive people who are often discriminated against...
...anymore.

FTFY

Is it time to start a Godwin pool?

CnC · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

I find stored procedures useful because so often in big companies the application guys aren't database oriented and thus make design decisions that fail to utilize the horsepower of a big database (see Exadata2). And a database developer using something like PL/SQL can leverage the power more effectively by hiding that complexity from the app developers.

Tim G · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

trwtf:
When someone asks the interviewer how the interview went, you want them to be saying "Man, the guy knows his stuff, and he's done all kinds of interesting stuff too" not "It was a little weird, I asked him about what sort of work he'd done and he started going on about taking porn pictures".

But if you've got good skills, it could also be the thing that makes you stand out as a human being with a personality who does something other than code all day and night. That sort of thing matters to some people -- I'm reminded of Eric Lippert's Laugh While You Can, Monkey Boy!

Abso:
Being able to follow cultural conventions around taboo subjects is an important social skill, regardless of whether that taboo makes sense. People who lack important social skills don't make great employees.

We're not talking about someone who dropped the F-bomb 60 times or who talked about his masturbation habits in an interview here. We're talking about someone who mentioned an odd point in their work history, and to anyone other than a Victorian prude or the HR Director of a Fortune 500 (same thing), it should be an amusing anecdote if the interview is otherwise going well. Let me guess, if the guy worked as a programmer for an adult website, you wouldn't want him to mention that either.

Zylon · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

History Agent:
Thanks. After I hit submit, I realized that using the word "irony" set off troll detectors all over the land.

The fact that you were responding to a post from "Captain Obvious" should have been the first clue that your post was going to be an exercise in redundancy.

boog · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Abso:
Being able to follow cultural conventions around taboo subjects is an important social skill, regardless of whether that taboo makes sense. People who lack important social skills don't make great employers.

FTFY

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Tim G:
trwtf:
When someone asks the interviewer how the interview went, you want them to be saying "Man, the guy knows his stuff, and he's done all kinds of interesting stuff too" not "It was a little weird, I asked him about what sort of work he'd done and he started going on about taking porn pictures".
But if you've got good skills, it could also be the thing that makes you stand out as a human being with a personality who does something other than code all day and night.

Yes, exactly. Handled correctly, you get my first case. Handled badly, you get the second. Either way, you stand out, but one way helps you, the other does not.

I don't think we're really disagreeing on this. I'm just emphasizing the "caution" part of it. It'd be easy to blow an otherwise good interview by seeming like a potential problem employee. For example, you could easily mishandle this and create the impression that you're a potential harrassment suit. For another example, you don't want your interviewer to be wondering whether you'd be the guy surfing porn sites in the office. Either of those would probably put you on the "no" pile, no matter how good a programmer you are.

Tim G · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

trwtf:
Yes, exactly. Handled correctly, you get my first case. Handled badly, you get the second. Either way, you stand out, but one way helps you, the other does not.
I don't think we're really disagreeing on this. I'm just emphasizing the "caution" part of it. It'd be easy to blow an otherwise good interview by seeming like a potential problem employee.

Fair enough. I may be leaning towards the less cautious side because a) I don't interview much, and b) I've been phone-interviewing candidates all day and they all evidence more-or-less the same skills, so personality is counting for a lot.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

luis.espinal:
When people start saying "death to this or that", it indicates they might not have a firm grasp on the technical issues at hand.

Death to Mork.

... (hi. i am not spam. hi. i am not spam. seriously now.)

smxlong · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Attach a photograph? This must not have been in the US. According to HR folks I've spoken with, any resume that arrives with a photograph attached goes directly in the trash. Apparently, it pollutes the hiring process by opening the possibility of discrimination based on race.

When I mentioned that a person's race could often be guessed just by what their name is, they shrugged and said "Doesn't make any sense, but those are the rules."

If you want a US job, attaching a photo to your application is a good way to not get hired.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

smxlong:
Attach a photograph? This must not have been in the US. According to HR folks I've spoken with, any resume that arrives with a photograph attached goes directly in the trash. Apparently, it pollutes the hiring process by opening the possibility of discrimination based on race.
When I mentioned that a person's race could often be guessed just by what their name is, they shrugged and said "Doesn't make any sense, but those are the rules."

If you want a US job, attaching a photo to your application is a good way to not get hired.

OK smart guy, what race am I?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Should I keep my tale of college summers spent manually extracting bull semen quiet?

Or just bring a bottle of hand-sanitizer along to offer them?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Rob White:
smxlong:
Attach a photograph? This must not have been in the US. According to HR folks I've spoken with, any resume that arrives with a photograph attached goes directly in the trash. Apparently, it pollutes the hiring process by opening the possibility of discrimination based on race.
When I mentioned that a person's race could often be guessed just by what their name is, they shrugged and said "Doesn't make any sense, but those are the rules."

If you want a US job, attaching a photo to your application is a good way to not get hired.

OK smart guy, what race am I?

Clearly you're a homosexual polynesian dwarf. With jug ears.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

trwtf:
Capt. Obvious:
OldPeter:
Well, it's fairly common to send photographs with a resume over here in Germany. Ok, that's normally a very formal, decent photo as for a passport, but some people also send more "nice" photos to present themselves in a hopefully positive way. This is a funny issue that in USA people are fearing discrimination by giving away their photo on this occasion, normally it's us here in Europe who have bigger fears of privacy violations, see all these StreetView and Facebook troubles recently.
Germany doesn't have a large group of visually distinctive people who are often discriminated against... at least not like the US does.

Unless, of course, you count the Turks.

At 3% of the population, I considered the Turks. But that's only 3%. It's not like the US with its substantial black and latino populations (12.5% and 10%). The US has a higher percentage Asian people (4.5%) and multiracial people than Germany does Turks. Hell, the US has more Native Americans than the Germany has Turks, in absolute numbers.

It's hard to talk about Germany's racial uniformity without skating the Godwin line. However, looking at France, it's only slightly more diverse (with a 5.25% of the population coming from Northern Africa and 1.75% from the rest of Africa... although only about 3% of France is black.) Turks only make up 0.7% of the French population.

Matt Westwood · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

trwtf:
Tim G:
trwtf:
When someone asks the interviewer how the interview went, you want them to be saying "Man, the guy knows his stuff, and he's done all kinds of interesting stuff too" not "It was a little weird, I asked him about what sort of work he'd done and he started going on about taking porn pictures".
But if you've got good skills, it could also be the thing that makes you stand out as a human being with a personality who does something other than code all day and night.

Yes, exactly. Handled correctly, you get my first case. Handled badly, you get the second. Either way, you stand out, but one way helps you, the other does not.

I don't think we're really disagreeing on this. I'm just emphasizing the "caution" part of it. It'd be easy to blow an otherwise good interview by seeming like a potential problem employee. For example, you could easily mishandle this and create the impression that you're a potential harrassment suit. For another example, you don't want your interviewer to be wondering whether you'd be the guy surfing porn sites in the office. Either of those would probably put you on the "no" pile, no matter how good a programmer you are.

I dunno - if you've been up close and personal for a career, the last thing you'd be likely to do is want to spend all your time looking at pictures of it all ... take it from one who knows. Er, so to speak.

smxlong · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

I said could OFTEN be guessed. In case it wasn't obvious enough, I think the whole issue is moronic anyway.

Matt Westwood · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Abso:
Tim G:
Matthew:
Also, you could deduce certain things from somebody thinking that talking about their past in the adult film industry is appropriate in a job interview.
Why isn't it, exactly? I mean, I don't talk much about my high-school job history as a arcade game repairman in my interviews because it's not remotely relevant to what I do. But if I were asked something that brought it up, I might mention it in passing. Why should it be any different in this case?
Being able to follow cultural conventions around taboo subjects is an important social skill, regardless of whether that taboo makes sense. People who lack important social skills don't make great employees.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't want to work for people who are prudish like that, it would put too much of a crimp on interpersonal banter and freedom of expression.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Tim G:
Matthew:
Also, you could deduce certain things from somebody thinking that talking about their past in the adult film industry is appropriate in a job interview.
Why isn't it, exactly? I mean, I don't talk much about my high-school job history as a arcade game repairman in my interviews because it's not remotely relevant to what I do. But if I were asked something that brought it up, I might mention it in passing. Why should it be any different in this case?

Because if you've ever even seen a real live naked woman (even if you were paid to do it) you're clearly not going to fit in with your co-workers in IT.

Matt Westwood · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Jake:
Tim G:
Matthew:
Also, you could deduce certain things from somebody thinking that talking about their past in the adult film industry is appropriate in a job interview.
Why isn't it, exactly? I mean, I don't talk much about my high-school job history as a arcade game repairman in my interviews because it's not remotely relevant to what I do. But if I were asked something that brought it up, I might mention it in passing. Why should it be any different in this case?
Because if you've ever even seen a real live naked woman (even if you were paid to do it) you're clearly not going to fit in with your co-workers in IT.

+1 pml

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Is it just me?

Why not combine two of these experiences and submit one of those pictures that "the porn guy" took as the "non-returnable photo". Might just work, you never know.

Yes, in the USA, not including the picture is more for the protection of the EMPLOYER, not the candidate. If they don't have it, they can't be blamed. Times have changed. College applications of the 60's routinely asked for a picture (I don't know about now!).

Vombatus · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

trwtf:
...It might be different if you're interviewing with Nicholas Parsons, but that's kettle of fish of a different color.

Coincidently, I was listening to Just A Minute when I read this.

hoodaticus · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

anon:
dpm:
While I've never read up on actual discrimination laws, it sounds actionable to refuse to consider hiring someone because of a completely legal job in their past. That would be like me showing someone the door because he admitted to being "Barney" on television years ago. It _feels_ justified but it ain't ethical.

I'd say it's abundantly clear you've never read up on employment discrimination laws. The only things you can't legally discriminate based on are the so called "protected classes": race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status. You can not hire someone because you don't like the color of their tie if you so choose and it's totally legal.

Good answer! Do you have a J.D. like me?

Federally, the categories are race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. States are therefore free to permit discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, and any other category you can think of. Yes, you can be fired in many if not most states for being gay or identifying yourself as a gender that does not match your sex.

In addition, you can discriminate based on any category - including race - if membership in the class is a bone fide occupational qualification (BFOQ). For example, BET can probably get away with only hiring black people to be on the air. Off the air, they probably could not.

hoodaticus · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Jake:
Tim G:
Matthew:
Also, you could deduce certain things from somebody thinking that talking about their past in the adult film industry is appropriate in a job interview.
Why isn't it, exactly? I mean, I don't talk much about my high-school job history as a arcade game repairman in my interviews because it's not remotely relevant to what I do. But if I were asked something that brought it up, I might mention it in passing. Why should it be any different in this case?
Because if you've ever even seen a real live naked woman (even if you were paid to do it) you're clearly not going to fit in with your co-workers in IT.

Nice! Dude clearly didn't factor in that these people are total nerds.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Bub:
Should I keep my tale of college summers spent manually extracting bull semen quiet?
Or just bring a bottle of hand-sanitizer along to offer them?

So you're the porn guy I saw on...

hoodaticus · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

TW:
frits:
History Agent:
Capt. Obvious:
Germany doesn't have a large group of visually distinctive people who are often discriminated against...
...anymore.

FTFY

Is it time to start a Godwin pool?

Hitler simile blah blah.

hoodaticus · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

boog:
Jaime:
One of the errors I see people defending stored procedures make all of the time is to make easily falsifiable claims.
When did it become erroneous to make falsifiable claims? Why did no one tell me?
Jaime:
There are plenty of ways to tweak ad-hoc SQL to get within 0.01% of the performance of stored procedures, especially if the server isn't CPU-bound, which most aren't.
Am I the only one who uses stored procedures for more than just SQL queries? I believe database views already cover that area.

Okay, you're like my favorite commenter here now, boog. You and frits and Moebius.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Jaime:
One of the errors I see people defending stored procedures make all of the time is to make easily falsifiable claims. Simply claiming that stored procedures are faster is not good enough. There are plenty of ways to tweak ad-hoc SQL to get within 0.01% of the performance of stored procedures, especially if the server isn't CPU-bound, which most aren't.

Ad-hoc SQL is never going to have the execution plan(s) pre-built on the server side, is it? If not, there's a performance hit right there.

I can't speak for Oracle, but on SQL Server, stored procedures are great. They provide all sorts of opportunities to do processing on the DB server, instead of sending masses of data back and forth between the DB server and app server. The people who develop database software specialize in optimizing it for what it does, so why not let that software do that work for you instead of trying to code it yourself?

Tools like LINQ make it easier to do database-style processing off of the server, but it still seems wasteful to do that given the choice between processing in-place and offloading processing to the (probably-not-written-as-well-as-SQL-Server) application tier.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

dpm:
While I've never read up on actual discrimination laws, it sounds actionable to refuse to consider hiring someone because of a completely legal job in their past. That would be like me showing someone the door because he admitted to being "Barney" on television years ago. It _feels_ justified but it ain't ethical.

Here in the USA, that's the most legal reason not to hire someone. What good are past-job references unless employers can use them to deny a job?

... and that guy who played Barney Miller is dead, I think.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

TPG:
pjt33:
backForMore:
Don't bother posting without a non-returnable photograph.
Does it have to be a photograph of me?

I've got some very tasteful pictures of my girlfriend I took just out of high-school. Would one of those work?

It depends -- just how tasty is she?

I too can misunderstand a word if I want to.

-Harrow.

luis.espinal · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

other:
dpm:
While I've never read up on actual discrimination laws, it sounds actionable to refuse to consider hiring someone because of a completely legal job in their past. That would be like me showing someone the door because he admitted to being "Barney" on television years ago. It _feels_ justified but it ain't ethical.

Here in the USA, that's the most legal reason not to hire someone. What good are past-job references unless employers can use them to deny a job?

... and that guy who played Barney Miller is dead, I think.

We can go even further than that. In the US, it is legal to decline hiring someone based on his/her credit history. The only criteria that are actionable/protected are gender, race/nationality, religion, political views and (to a degree) sexual inclination, age, handicap status and past criminal record. Everything else is free game for hiring or not hiring someone.

With that said, the days when people were discriminated for minutia is long gone. It is rare (though still occurs). Every country is different, and when you are in that country, you do as in that country. And in this country, it is not appropriate (or wise) to talk about having any type of work with ZOMG! pr0nX0rs! regardless of how easy going the interviewers might be.

Maybe one can talk about it after getting the job... and only in work circumstances that are welcome, permissible and judicious. In life, no matter what country you are, it pays to keep your pie hole shut when at work.

Freedom of expression is best left when you punch out of work, not when you are in. Freedom of expression is not going to take a dent from keeping one's mouth shut while on the clock.

The only time I could think someone should/could talk about such type of past work is if that person is interviewing for a job related to online billing and charging or media streaming (where pr0n is supreme and leads the way.)

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

I worked in the UK about 15 years ago, so things might have changed, but then age discrimination was very legal and normal.

Applicant age was prominently mentioned in almost every employment advertisement. You'd see something like 'Java programmer with five years experience, should be between 20 and 30 years of age'.

Here in the United States people over 40 are a protected group, along with veterans, felons, and people descended from Spain. Oddly people of Portuguese descent are not a protected group.

Go figure.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Jim Howard:
Here in the United States people over 40 are a protected group, along with veterans, felons, and people descended from Spain. Oddly people of Portuguese descent are not a protected group.
Go figure.

It's because we all know the Spaniards "need a little help" while the Ports are just as good as anyone else.

There, see? Segregating people by some arbitrary group and saying "you can't discriminate against these people" is discrimination! And it perpetuates the idea that some people -- not individuals, but groups -- are weaker, and couldn't make it on their own.

I have a dream... that someday people will not be judged for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character. Radical, I know.

Jaime · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Dirge:
Jaime:
One of the errors I see people defending stored procedures make all of the time is to make easily falsifiable claims. Simply claiming that stored procedures are faster is not good enough. There are plenty of ways to tweak ad-hoc SQL to get within 0.01% of the performance of stored procedures, especially if the server isn't CPU-bound, which most aren't.

Ad-hoc SQL is never going to have the execution plan(s) pre-built on the server side, is it? If not, there's a performance hit right there.

I can't speak for Oracle, but on SQL Server, stored procedures are great. They provide all sorts of opportunities to do processing on the DB server, instead of sending masses of data back and forth between the DB server and app server. The people who develop database software specialize in optimizing it for what it does, so why not let that software do that work for you instead of trying to code it yourself?

Tools like LINQ make it easier to do database-style processing off of the server, but it still seems wasteful to do that given the choice between processing in-place and offloading processing to the (probably-not-written-as-well-as-SQL-Server) application tier.

You couldn't be more wrong. Microsoft SQL Server has cached execution plans for ad-hoc SQL for the past fourteen years. Also, ad-hoc SQL runs on the server too. There is nothing preventing one from submitting 128MB of text as ad-hoc SQL and it running on the server. From that perspective, there is zero difference between stored procedures and ad-hoc SQL. Your argument is that exact argument that I was referring to in my post. It only serves to show that you only know one side of the argument. When you come up with an argument that actually holds water, come back and try it.

Jaime · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

boog:
Jaime:
One of the errors I see people defending stored procedures make all of the time is to make easily falsifiable claims.
When did it become erroneous to make falsifiable claims? Why did no one tell me?
Jaime:
There are plenty of ways to tweak ad-hoc SQL to get within 0.01% of the performance of stored procedures, especially if the server isn't CPU-bound, which most aren't.
Am I the only one who uses stored procedures for more than just SQL queries? I believe database views already cover that area.

OK, so I could have used a better word like "disproven" instead of "falsifiable". Congratulations for winning the vocabulary war. Now back to SQL...

Who ever said that ad-hoc SQL was limited to queries? Name one SQL statement (other than RETURN) that can be used in a stored procedure, but not in an ad-hoc batch.

Let's try a little challenge... you post a stored procedure and I'll post ad-hoc SQL that runs nearly identically. Spoiler: I'm simply going to remove the CREATE PROC from your post, turn the arguments into batch variables and re-post it.

Jaime · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

BigJim:
Here's another argument for stored procs. IF you keep code in a stored proc, then an update can be made by pushing that proc to production. No code change/deployment needed. Depending on the environment, this might be an easier thing to push through all the gate-keepers - dba's, data center, etc. - involved in a "production fix".

So your big plus for stored proces is that they are easy to sneak around the change control process. Are you sure that's a good thing? You could use the same argument to show that it's a good idea for production code to call a script stored in your home directory.

Power Troll · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

frits:
History Agent:
Capt. Obvious:
Germany doesn't have a large group of visually distinctive people who are often discriminated against...
...anymore.

FTFY

Why is this not blue?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

That one had me rollin'.

Sounds silly, but before I realized what they were and had to write a few, I thought stored procedures were the functions we wrote for the database (from say PHP). Can you tell I started on MySQL?

captcha: paratus .. a wha?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Not exactly porn, but I once tried a stunt with a company where I was interviewing but actually did not want to go. They asked for a reference, and I gave them my former manager, just out of curiosity, what happens if they get a mixed response, and also how do people give this kind of mixed responses?

So a couple of days later they bothered to invite me again for a casual lunch talk, and started grilling me regarding my personal traits. I hardly concealed my smile, and was just curious, what exactly went wrong etc.

So now I know how it works.

Then the recruiter asked me what happened, and again, out of curiosity, I told him what happened. "You are very smart" he said. Probably in their language it means "you are an idiot". (Well, 23andme recently told me that not caring about negative response is in my genes...)

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

OldPeter:
Well, it's fairly common to send photographs with a resume over here in Germany. Ok, that's normally a very formal, decent photo as for a passport, but some people also send more "nice" photos to present themselves in a hopefully positive way. This is a funny issue that in USA people are fearing discrimination by giving away their photo on this occasion, normally it's us here in Europe who have bigger fears of privacy violations, see all these StreetView and Facebook troubles recently.

Actually, the issue is that it's difficult for anyone to send an unreturnable photo by email.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?

If you're not working with an embedded system, you probably don't care about atomic operations, and if you are working with an embedded system, you're likely to need to know what one is.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Safely anonymous:
And of course, the onus is on *you* to prove that you weren't hired because of one of the "naughty" categories. As long as they can come up with a reasonable explanation, they're off the hook.

That's a shame (although the tolerance the USA has for racist politicians is probably worse). In the UK, the courts tend to look unfavourably on an employer who doesn't have clear enough notes on each interview to show that the decision was not taken on an unlawful basis.

That said, candidates rarely find out why they have been rejected. And I don't suppose previously having held a job as a porn camerawoman would break the law (in the way that, say, rejecting an ex-soldier could do).

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

I love tales from the interview.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Jaime:
Dirge:
Jaime:
One of the errors I see people defending stored procedures make all of the time is to make easily falsifiable claims. Simply claiming that stored procedures are faster is not good enough. There are plenty of ways to tweak ad-hoc SQL to get within 0.01% of the performance of stored procedures, especially if the server isn't CPU-bound, which most aren't.

Ad-hoc SQL is never going to have the execution plan(s) pre-built on the server side, is it? If not, there's a performance hit right there.

I can't speak for Oracle, but on SQL Server, stored procedures are great. They provide all sorts of opportunities to do processing on the DB server, instead of sending masses of data back and forth between the DB server and app server. The people who develop database software specialize in optimizing it for what it does, so why not let that software do that work for you instead of trying to code it yourself?

Tools like LINQ make it easier to do database-style processing off of the server, but it still seems wasteful to do that given the choice between processing in-place and offloading processing to the (probably-not-written-as-well-as-SQL-Server) application tier.
You couldn't be more wrong. Microsoft SQL Server has cached execution plans for ad-hoc SQL for the past fourteen years. Also, ad-hoc SQL runs on the server too. There is nothing preventing one from submitting 128MB of text as ad-hoc SQL and it running on the server. From that perspective, there is zero difference between stored procedures and ad-hoc SQL. Your argument is that exact argument that I was referring to in my post. It only serves to show that you only know one side of the argument. When you come up with an argument that actually holds water, come back and try it.

I was curious so I looked it up on msdn...

... When a user process inserts an execution plan into the cache, the user process sets the current cost equal to the original query compile cost; for ad-hoc execution plans, the user process sets the current cost to zero. ... The following examples illustrate which execution plans get removed from the procedure cache:

*

  An execution plan is frequently referenced so that its cost never goes to zero. The plan remains in the procedure cache and is not removed unless there is memory pressure and the current cost is zero.
*

  An ad-hoc execution plan is inserted and is not referenced again before memory pressure exists. Since ad-hoc plans are initialized with a current cost of zero, when the database engine examines the execution plan, it will see the zero current cost and remove the plan from the procedure cache. The ad-hoc execution plan remains in the procedure cache with a zero current cost when memory pressure does not exist.

...so it looks to me that if the adhoc query is being looped, it'll eventually get costed, else it'll get flushed.

frits · 2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Power Troll:
frits:
History Agent:
Capt. Obvious:
Germany doesn't have a large group of visually distinctive people who are often discriminated against...
...anymore.

FTFY

Why is this not blue?

Probably too racey.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Nagesh Kukunoor:
My experience tells me that stored procedures are a thing of the past. You should keep away from them as much as possible.
You should rely on ORM tools like Hibernate and that will obviate the need to write any stored procedures

Naah, just write your own database drivers. It should only take about six weeks.

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

Henning Makholm:
too_many_usernames:
We are a primarily embedded systems company, so one question on the test is: "What is an atomic operation?"
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?

The company obviously built process controllers for nuclear power plants. Geeze, do I have to do all the thinking around here?

2011-01-27 Reply Admin

The Corrector:
goob:
Ok. Let's review:

Liz gets job and goes to college.

Liz interviews for new job, putting past job on resume.

Company blacklists Liz based purely on the answer to a seemingly-benign interview question. 3.1) Company adds insult to injury by calling her a guy.

Liz gets a new job.

Liz interviews candidate.

Liz blacklists candidate based purely on the answer to a seemingly-benign interview question.
FTFY

Oh for fscks sake will people stop going on about Uncle Liz being a woman! For one thing it's upsetting Aunty Steve.

2011-01-28 Reply Admin

Gunslinger:
Henning Makholm:
Perhaps I'm ignorant, but what's the causal connection between embedded systems and atomic operations?
If you're not working with an embedded system, you probably don't care about atomic operations, and if you are working with an embedded system, you're likely to need to know what one is.

Hm. I don't work with embedded systems (much), yet somehow I do care.

On the other hand, some of what I do is a language runtime.

On the other-other hand, I would expect that an embedded system whose OS is so rudimentary that it doesn't offer application programmers the usual suite of concurrency primitives would be a single-core affair where atomicity is relatively simple -- no worrying about memory hierarchies and using the right kind of barrier. But I don't actually know that, no.

2011-01-28 Reply Admin

Paco:
It's sad that people are such prudes. If it were me interviewing that guy would have moved to the top of the list.

I agree. Anyone willing to do what it takes to get through a tight spot will be good to have on the team. At least he's not going to balk at doing luser support - he's done stuff at least as mindnumbing before.

2011-01-28 Reply Admin

Tim G:
I don't disagree with you, but that's not what Matthew seems to be saying, which is that the fact that talking about one's work in the adult film industry isn't appropriate in some kind of inherent sense. Which is bullshit.

I mean that context matters. Talking about it in passing is fine. I personally don't have a problem with it - but I think mentioning it in an interview shows poor judgement. Do you want to employ people with poor judgement?

Stored Procedures, The Porn Guy, and Non-returnable Email

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