interview question: as a dba, what are your concerns with a code-first programming methodology

I'm not a DBA yet, but the answer would be like pretty much everything

In my experience it simply does not work

"nothing, as long as you can translate the awful query that i see on my side that's causing tremendous performance hits into the code (Entity Framework) that you see on yours."

"and if you can figure out how to coerce Linq to write good SQL"

were these your actual answers?

a nicer version of that

a diplomat, I forgot

was it a success?

dezso: everything...interviewer: can you be more specific?....dezso: no

not far from being true :)

@dezso That, he certainly is

@DTest to be precise, I have no first hand experience with it

but what I see from others is less than promising

I have way too much experience with it.

doesn't sound promising either

@dezso sorry ... got sidetracked

well, it was the development manager ... he asked and i said, "i prefer actually having control over the SQL that is generated, but if this is an adopted standard of the team, then my primary concern and what i'd ask you and your team for is the ability to be able to track back some poorly-performing SQL to the code itself. if that means we have to work together during unit testing for me to be able to trace the sql from the code, then so be it, but i would appreciate that ability."

my experience isn't as bad as it could be, but some of the early decisions made with 'code first' can be costly to change if it turns out to be a performance issue.

interviewer: what's the difference between geometry and geography data types in sql server

me: blink blink blink blink

@swasheck That is a god damn well thought answer

that type of question is why I don't want to interview :)

me: lmgtfy

@DTest which one?

the geometry vs geography

yeah ... that's what i said ... i dont have experience with that but i'm sure i could explain it once i searched MSDN

@dezso here was a good softball question ...

interviewer: this is valid sql for microsoft ... SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM Customer ... is it valid for postgresql?

me: nope ... you need select * from customer limit 1000; but why are you selecting *?

@swasheck A: one is better suited to geography data and the other to geometry data

@Lamak in the end i said that geometry related to shapes and geography was how those shapes related to varying planes

@Lamak ... where do you live again?

hm....Chile

@Lamak ah ... ok ... i interviewed with a guy from peru ... wanted to ensure that you weren't him :)

@Lamak (fingering through my geometry handbook)

@swasheck oh, good then. I'm sure that I'm way nicer than him

@Lamak he was very subdued and quiet

@dezso A long but narrow country on south america

These questions look rather random for me

@Lamak Oh, I felt that it would be geography

@swasheck: ah, you didn't mention FETCH NEXT ROWS ?

which works in both

@Lamak I have a fuzzy plan about flying in Iquique

@swasheck geometry is Euclidean - more idealized, geography is on the surface of the Earth and respects the various ellipsoidal datum related things because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere.

@CadeRoux to put it bluntly, i was kinda right

with my SWAG

@dezso Good luck there. I don't know Iquique yet, but I also don't like the weather there. Too hot

@Lamak it is said that 360 days out of 365 are flyable (with paraglider)

I think I could bear the heat for a week or two

@dezso Yeap, no cloudy days there

@Lamak i have some friends who just got back from Curicó

Climatewise, I'd prefer the south end

@swasheck That I do know, but nothing much to see there ;-)

@dezso so do I

@swasheck: good luck in your quest.

@ypercube thanks.

Just rolled out a new feature for PostgreSQL on SQL Fiddle: a button to view your query plan on explain.depesz.com