Microsoft SQL Server, living in the dark ages
I find myself having to interface with MsSql Server again, having been living happily with my more preferred open source database engine ( mysql ). If you are a developer trying to decide on a database engine to use, let me share some thoughts with you that will give you a more informed position to make a decision.
There are some things that make me frustrated about mssql, some things that just don’t make any sense. The biggest frustration I have when using mssql, is that there is no LIMIT clause like there is in mysql. As a developer, you may be saying “What!?! no limit clause, how will we do pagination?!”. The answer to that question is one that is commonplace with Microsoft products, “there is a clever hack to work around the issue that shouldn’t exist in the first place”. In MsSql Server before 2005, the syntax gets very ugly ( you will have to look some up and see what I mean ).
In mssql 2005, they added the the ROW_NUMBER() function, which makes pagination easier but still not as intuitive as the mysql LIMIT clause. How could Microsoft leave something so important out of their widely used database server engine?
