Cool Programming

Sharp

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:51:48 GMT

I love people who make sure to add sharp to the start time of their meetings. Instead of 4PM, the meeting time is 4PM sharp. As in, don't be late. This is a gross clue that the meeting won't actually take place till 4:30 PM and that everybody other than the organizer will sie around for 45 minutes, having arrived early.

SELECT COUNT(*)

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 14:44:45 GMT

If you have ever performed a SELECT COUNT(*) on a very large table, you know how long it can take.

SELECT COUNT(*) from <table_name>

A much faster, and more efficient, way of counting rows in a table is to run the following query:

SELECT rows
FROM sysindexes
WHERE id = OBJECT_ID('<table_name>') AND indid < 2

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/misc_tips.asp

Check for NULL

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 21:42:04 GMT

Some people think you shoud always check for NULL. I'm not one of them. But, if you are gonna check for NULL, then do something about it before you end up with the following code, which would've been better had he not checked for NULL.

try
{
   var obj = new Object();
   if ( obj != null )
   {
      obj.Load();
   }
}
catch ( e )
{
   window.alert( "Unable to load");
}

System.Net.WebException: The operation has timed-out.

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 13:21:55 GMT

If you open more than a few connections to the same website using HttpWebRequest, then you'll likely get this misleading exception. You can fix the problem by making sure you close your HTTP connections.

        HttpWebRequest r = WebRequest.Create("http://xyz");
        HttpWebResponse w = r.GetResponse()
        ... // << do stuff here
        w.Close(); // << frees the connection