I am been storing information on the whereabouts of nuclear reactor fuel in this app, but recently we have become aware of the possibility that the information we think we are saving isn't what's getting out. So now we cant be sure some of our uranium hasn't been stolen. Oh well, what's someone going to do with uranium anyway? I suppose it's no big deal."
Grim as that was, it's worth noting it's referring to issues with SQL Server 6.5 and 7 over 10 years ago. As the current release is v10.5 (2008R2) and we're scheduled to next year see v11 (2012) I would suspect the relevant problem tickets have been resolved...
It seems to me that this is very much the same phenomenon as people posting to reddit or ask.metafilter questions or comments that would make much more sense to pose to a particular company's customer service. People think "hey, here's a place I can write stuff", and don't really have a mental model that differentiates between targets. It's a matter of degree, not qualitative difference, between thinking you should ask Reddit why your Verizon bill is being calculated wrong and thinking of "the internet" as a completely amorphous featureless blob that you can type to anywhere and it'll be just as good as anywhere else.
I've done that with Stack Overflow; I'll ask a highly-specialized question that would be best answered by the actual mailing list, often because I'm already on SO and I am too lazy to go sign up for the mailing list.
In my defense, two days ago I tried to post to the git mailing list and it took many, many minutes to do, because:
* the git web site does not actually tell you the mailing list subscribe address; it links to GMANE and shows the post-to-the-list address
* GMANE has a subscribe option, but of course, they mean subscribe through GMANE
I finally found the master list of lists at vger.kernel.org (one giant unreadable page), which lists the unsubscribe command, which can of course be reverse-engineered into the subscribe command for that majordomo server.
And I freaking wrote a major mail server. No wonder people just post to "that place where you ask questions".
The real fun doesn't start until you tell those people they're posting in the wrong place and get a lecture about how they're reporting you to the FBI for hacking into their private business.
That is a lucid and very charitable version of my take on it, which is that there are an awful lot of stupid people about (or perhaps a few stupid people who put themselves about a lot).
Some youtube comments look like people pointlessly post their stream of consciousness to the text box below the video. A lot of search engine queries look like people are just addressing the text box as if it were a person; just like Apple is getting people to think of Siri as a personal assistant. Some day we'll have good enough AI that this will be a viable interaction method (though not nearly optimal without some learning on both ends).
It actually comes from Itzik Ben Gan's presentation, "Bug or Feature." He covers an array of SQL Server behaviors and asks the audience to guess whether it's a bug or feature, and then explains the answer.
Not to be glib, but couldn't I make this comment about nearly any "enterprise" software? Though, I guess as a whole, this entire review could be applied to nearly anything--since it's largely illustrate how ignorant users are. At least, I thought that was the point (pre-coffee).
Without a doubt. It's especially true with something like SQL Server though, where it's sheer scale brings it close to something of an operating system on its own. I find myself scratching my head because of it on a weekly basis; of course 99% of the time its more from my own ignorance than any fault of SS (and I'm sure most Oracle/MySQL/Postresql users all feel the same way).
I'm not a DBA by any measure, so I sort of find myself the same way when acclimating myself to any database--let alone the non-rational ones. I really have come to value a good DBA having to do some stuff myself at a smaller company. The shearing amount of planning and worry into setting up a DB for something like a CMS gives me ulcers.
I will say, though, I'd much rather be working with MSSQL than Oracle. Though, I might be using the wrong tools for the latter. I do feel somewhat "loved" by MS though as far as c#/VS tooling for MSSQL.
Given enough users, all bugs become features, to someone. This kind of user/product interlocking happens a lot in Microsoft software (document formats, ie6, sql, etc).
"A Bit Buggy but Pretty Good
I am been storing information on the whereabouts of nuclear reactor fuel in this app, but recently we have become aware of the possibility that the information we think we are saving isn't what's getting out. So now we cant be sure some of our uranium hasn't been stolen. Oh well, what's someone going to do with uranium anyway? I suppose it's no big deal."
(http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/nukesoftware.html and noted on other sites. If one is going to come up with reviews, one can also make fun of some real cases, I suppose.)