I've found yet another blog and post(sheesh) regarding Query Notifications.  It's a survey asking some general questions.  If you have some complaints or comments head over there and let MS know what you want to see.  I'm still formulating my customer solution.

Observation:  Microsoft has a habit of assuming their solution should be satisfactory and doesn't really give an example of what to do if it isn't.  The user is left to try to piece together a solution that actually works in the real world.  So many of MS's examples assume that you are a drag-and-dropping cheeseball that uses SELECT * for queries and the SQLDataAdapterConnectorInterpreterManagerGateway for all things data. 

What about us folks who actually want to write code.  If I see one more MSDN artcile trumpeting the fact that you don't need to write one line of code, I'm going to puke.  Yeah instead of using a first class IDE supported language to write code I want to put some mish mash of bastardized markup into my ASP.NET page.  That's a great solution.  Try debugging that pile of angle brackets when something doesn't work.  Code is good.  I like writing code.  The IDE supports writing code. 

MS for god's sake let me write code!

In a follow up to my original article on Query Notification in SQL Server 2005, I've posted a question on the MSDN forums about Customer Query Notifications.

I'll keep you posted on whatever solution I come up with.

 

Seriously, SqlCacheDependancy looked like one of the best new features of ASP.NET 2.0.  Unfortunately, this feature is crippled because of the limited queries you can use.  See this MSDN article for more on that.  Basically you can't use TOP, ORDER BY, COUNT(*) and many other standard SQL clauses.  This is a serious limitation.

I am across this post about one person's attempt to get this to work which led to this post on the rules and some criticisms of the Query Notification mechanism.  Here is the official MSDN article on creating query notifications. 

So I wonder if this mechanism is too complicated for real-world use.  It certainly seems nice on first review but after trying to use it I can testify that it difficult to get this working correctly.  The query restrictions really limit your options. 

I'm not ready to give up because the potential up side to this is just too great.  One alternative I'm considering is trying the overloaded SqlCacheDependancy constructor and trying to pass the database and the table.  For joins and sub-queries I may need to hook multiple SqlCacheDependancy objects together with the AggregateCacheDependency.  This seems like a big pain but I think it may be worth it because your site gets much faster once it is all cached up.

Part 2 of the series looks at the motivation to increase your income.

Budgeting only gets you so far, after that you need to increase your income. Here is how I did it.

To quote Mel Gibson from Braveheart: "Frrreeeeeddddoommmmmmmm!!!!"

Scoble has been irritating me for a while now. This latest steaming pile of poo-poo has pushed me too far.

Playing games an investment? Maybe. Yes your kid might not be wasting thier life in front of the computer, they may be preparing for a great career.

What happens when you water down the educational system and everybody gets into college?

Dear C#,

It's taken many months to get the courage up to write this letter.  I have been unfaithful.  I have cheated on you several times.  I won't go into all the details now because I know you will be too fragile to read all of the sordid details but I must confess my first indiscretion.  Her name was Ruby on Rails.  She promised me so many things like an automagical data access layer and super fast site creation.  Only now I realize that she was a cheap whore, pimped by a slick smooth-talking metrosexual Dane with a knack for finding the weaknesses of enterprise developers and exploiting them.

I feel so dirty but I have to say this.  The cheating was only part of it.  I was also using pretty heavily.  I was using VIM several times a day.  That's when I suspected I had a problem.  I think I knew I hit rock bottom when I stooped to hitting the Exuberant Ctags for a fix.  It was Ruby that got me hooked on that crap.  I was so sold on her elegance and simplicity I ignored the hoops I was jumping through to get a decent editor.  The whole time this was happing Visual Studio 2003 just waited patiently for my return with a knowing look.  VS2003 knew she was better but she let me find out for myself.  Like a parent who knows the only way to teach a child a lesson is to let them learn it on his own, you knowingly looked on as I struggled in vain with a succession of seedier solutions for text editing.  There was the aforementioned VIM, SciTE, jEdit, and the abomination to end abominations radrails.  When you are reduced to an orgy of J2EE acronyms to stay agile you know you have a problem.  The Pimp himself has so shamelessly denigrated Java, yet many of his clientèle must turn to Java to make sleeping with Ruby a tolerable experience. 

I now know what it must be like to be a fan of Anna Nicole Smith and then to meet her in person and then to realize what a waste of chemical compounds she has turned into.  She's apparently beautiful but once you here her talk you realize there's nothing going on in there.  So I liken the experience I had meeting Ruby on Rails.  Seemingly beautiful on the outside but utterly deranged once you get passed the magical ActiveRecord song and dance show. 

I'm physically drained.  That's all I can stand to write for now.  I have more to confess like using Daedalus to keep Ruby up on running once she would go on her nightly benders and the inevitable crash afterwords (I guess she was really Like Ms. Smith!) but I will leave that for later. 

To Be Completed...

After reading this post about a bad job I think back to my worst job.  Was it cleaning barns? No.  Was it assembling doors in a factory?  No.  Was it tarring roads?  No.  Was it mopping floors?  No.  I've done all those things and more but these jobs were not the worst jobs I've had.  There was something honest about them because of the labor involved and getting paid for what I did.  The worst job had to be with a huge bank with a large consumer finance division with a very profitable credit card division.  Think about those finance plans form places like Best Buy or Slumberland.  Then think about people getting into debt because they buy a lot of worthless junk then they get hurt or sick or get way too far over their heads in debt.  Then they get behind and then they go into collections.  That's where I came in.  I had to collect from these people. 

It sucked.

I heard the most awful stories in my life.  I felt dirty.  I hated it.  These people were like cornered animals.  Most you didn't feel sorry for because they were the victims of their own stupidity.  The ones with cancer or the ones whose husband/wife just died you felt pretty damn bad about and here you were calling them about a stupid credit card. 

However I credit this job with instilling in me the hatred of debt.  My goal is to be beholden to no other person and I am well on my way.  So thank you Big Bank for a life lesson I will never forget.