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a complex and poorly-documented special case
Monday, June 7 2021
I actually got into the zone today with writing code for a data importer (as part of my day job). The code in this case was Microsoft Transact-SQL (TSQL), which is actually a fairly complete language allowing for loops and condtionals. I actually became quite proficient writing scripts in this language (in the form of stored procedures) about 20 years ago when working at Launch.com, though I'd forgotten many of the details in the years since. While reasonably complete, TSQL is highly idiosyncratic, forcing me to write much of my code in the form of dynamic SQL built up by looping code written in non-dynamic SQL accessing pseudo-arrays that were actually tiny hard-coded tables of configuration data. This works okay, though there are variable scope issues when one does this (variables in dynamic SQL cannot access values in non-dynamic SQL except via literal embeds, and non-dynamic SQL cannot access variables in dynamic SQL except via a complex and poorly-documented special case of sp_executesql using the OUTPUT keyword. I toiled over about 50 lines of TSQL code all day, only getting it to work a little before 9:00pm.
The day was hot and humid, but I was fairly comfortable in the laboratory with just a fan blowing on me. After Gretchen came home from work, though, I turned on the laboratory air conditioning system, which also acts to cool the teevee room, making things comfortable when we watched Jeopardy!.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?210607 feedback
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