Thursday, November 17, 2016

SQL Server AMA thread on reddit is live now



The SQL Server AMA thread on reddit is now live, you can start asking questions now and they will start answering Friday 11/18 at 9:30 PDT until 14:00 PDT.

One person already has a ton of questions, just look at this list, some of these would really make a nice addition.

SQL Server is a great product, thank you for it, but we need more from you.
And here's my question.
There are many issues on Connect that desperately need resolving, some of them are open for more than 10 years. My favorite is from Adam Machanic: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/252226/allow-enabling-and-disabling-of-a-columns-identity-property
There are also many pointed out by the SQL MVPs and experts for years, like these:https://sqlperformance.com/2013/04/t-sql-queries/filtered-indexes
I've collected some more stuff that is missing in SQL Server and should be implemented:
  • using GPU for processing!
  • native regular expression support! Don't force every user to implement their own CLR, just give us optimized regexes!
  • Git support for SSMS (just like it's in Visual Studio)
  • row constructors! - like in WHERE (orderdate, orderid) > (@orderdate, @orderid)
  • order preserving clustered columnstore
  • implement PERCENT and WITH TIES for OFFSET-FETCH (it's a standard feature) to align it with old TOP operator
  • TOP() OVER operator - like SELECT TOP (3) OVER (PARTITION BY custid ORDER BY orderdate, orderid)
  • NTH_VALUE window function
  • FILTER clause for window functions - http://modern-sql.com/feature/filter, similar to Itzik's suggestion https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/532474
  • IS [NOT] DISTINCT FROM operator
  • INTERSECT ALL in addition to INTERSECT
  • EXCEPT ALL in addition to EXCEPT
  • RANGE BETWEEN INTERVAL '3' MONTH PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW ability for window frames
  • WITH DROP_EXISTING (alternatively CREATE OR ALTER) for everything
  • ALTER TABLE .. CHECK CONSTRAINT should be a no-op if the constraint is already trusted
  • ORDER BY ... NULLS FIRST/LAST
  • user interface (wizards, monitoring) for Service Broker
  • column name in 'string or binary data would be truncated' message!
  • dark theme for SSMS
  • simple change of server collation on Windows (it's super-easy in SQL Server on Linux)
  • multiple tempdb databases + one "official" tempdb backwards compatible
  • In-Memory tempdb
  • search engine similar to Elastic Search / Splunk
  • ability to install In-Database R Services on FCI
  • generally speaking better coverage of standard SQL features - T-SQL is for DEVELOPERS who are constantly pushed by management to be more effective - so finally make their lives easier
This list is by no means exhaustive. Most of them are just features desctibed in ISO/IEC SQL standard.
A lot of Connect feedback has been prematurely and improperly closed with various reasons: Won't fix, by design, some are active for ages. What I would ideally want from you is to review all unfixed items and decide again whether they're worth doing or not.
Like this one - 124 votes and closed/won't fix!
This one - 179 votes - active since 2007!
Some limitations are just silly, like the one requiring something to be a single statement in a batch. If I can bypass that requirement by putting my code in a dynamic SQL and do EXEC(string) then why SQL Server cannot do that for me??
And please fix this darn slow Connect site. Maybe a reindex and statistics update will do? :-)
Finally the question: do you acknowledge this? Will you fix all this? Any comments?

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