Becoming old and senile

[DimPrawn]

I've revisited some SQL I wrote about 5 or more years ago. It makes no sense to me at all now.

select x.linkID, x.html, x.url, x.title, x.description, x.contactEmail, x.reciprocalLinkUrl, x.status, x.lastChecked, x.missingCount, x.pageRank, x.hits, x.lastHit, x.rating, x.votes, x.averageRating, x.commentCount, x.created, x.updated
	  from

	 (Select linkID, html, url, title, description, contactEmail, reciprocalLinkUrl, status, lastChecked, missingCount, pageRank, hits, lastHit, rating, votes, averageRating, commentCount, created, updated,
		substr(' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ',seq,
		CharIndex(' ' , ' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ' , seq) - seq) as words
	from SEQUENCE
	inner join vwVisibleLinks l	
	where
	 seq <= length(' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ') and
	 substr(' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ', seq - 1, 1) = ' ' and
	 CharIndex(' ' , ' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ' , seq) - seq > 0) as x
	 inner join
	 (Select substr(@searchTerm,seq,
		CharIndex(' ' , @searchTerm , seq) - seq) as keywords
	from SEQUENCE
	where
	 seq <= length(@searchTerm) and
	 substr(@searchTerm, seq - 1, 1) = ' ' and
	 CharIndex(' ' ,@searchTerm, seq) - seq > 0) as y
	 on x.words like y.keywords
     inner join linkCategories lc
     on lc.linkID = x.linkID
     inner join categories c
     on lc.categoryID = c.categoryID
     where c.lft between (select lft from categories where categoryID = @categoryID) and (select rgt from categories where categoryID = @categoryID)
     group by x.linkID, x.html, x.url, x.title, x.description, x.contactEmail, x.reciprocalLinkUrl, x.status, x.lastChecked, x.missingCount, x.pageRank, x.hits, x.lastHit, x.rating, x.votes, x.averageRating, x.commentCount, x.created, x.updated
     order by count(x.linkid) desc

NickFitz, over to you....




I'm not cut out for this anymore. Looking at management roles now.

[mudskipper]

That's SKA? You work for AtW?

[MarillionFan]

Feck me, I can still understand that.

It never leaves you.

[Spacecadet]

I've revisited some SQL I wrote about 5 or more years ago. It makes no sense to me at all now.

select x.linkID, x.html, x.url, x.title, x.description, x.contactEmail, x.reciprocalLinkUrl, x.status, x.lastChecked, x.missingCount, x.pageRank, x.hits, x.lastHit, x.rating, x.votes, x.averageRating, x.commentCount, x.created, x.updated
	  from

	 (Select linkID, html, url, title, description, contactEmail, reciprocalLinkUrl, status, lastChecked, missingCount, pageRank, hits, lastHit, rating, votes, averageRating, commentCount, created, updated,
		substr(' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ',seq,
		CharIndex(' ' , ' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ' , seq) - seq) as words
	from SEQUENCE
	inner join vwVisibleLinks l	
	where
	 seq <= length(' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ') and
	 substr(' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ', seq - 1, 1) = ' ' and
	 CharIndex(' ' , ' ' || l.description || ' ' || l.title || ' ' , seq) - seq > 0) as x
	 inner join
	 (Select substr(@searchTerm,seq,
		CharIndex(' ' , @searchTerm , seq) - seq) as keywords
	from SEQUENCE
	where
	 seq <= length(@searchTerm) and
	 substr(@searchTerm, seq - 1, 1) = ' ' and
	 CharIndex(' ' ,@searchTerm, seq) - seq > 0) as y
	 on x.words like y.keywords
     inner join linkCategories lc
     on lc.linkID = x.linkID
     inner join categories c
     on lc.categoryID = c.categoryID
     where c.lft between (select lft from categories where categoryID = @categoryID) and (select rgt from categories where categoryID = @categoryID)
     group by x.linkID, x.html, x.url, x.title, x.description, x.contactEmail, x.reciprocalLinkUrl, x.status, x.lastChecked, x.missingCount, x.pageRank, x.hits, x.lastHit, x.rating, x.votes, x.averageRating, x.commentCount, x.created, x.updated
     order by count(x.linkid) desc

NickFitz, over to you....




I'm not cut out for this anymore. Looking at management roles now.

Reading that tulipe query you clearly weren't cut out for it in the first place

[CoolCat]

the first system I worked on professionally... used to dump things as ascii but in hex and reversed. so believe it or not i was quite good at reading large amounts of hex backwards and being able to tell what it said...

i saw some of this about 6 months ago and could make little bits out but not the fluency i once had

ah them was the days

[northernladuk]

I actually...... doh, forgot what I was going to say. Nevermind.

[NickFitz]

Looks like it made no sense when you wrote it

[BrilloPad]

One of the first things I learnt is that most code one writes will be uncomprehensible to everyone(includng the author) after 6 months. So I try to make sure all the code I write can be understoiod by anyone with appropriate comments.

Sas thinks its easy - which means he is not clever enough to do it.

[sasguru]

Sas thinks its easy - which means he is not clever enough to do it.

I don't think coding is easy - I did it for the first 10 years of my career after all.
In fact it's too much like hard work, slaving away on the computer - far better to do modelling which involves checking assumptions on the data, data cleaning, data shaping, fitting a model, doing some checks and presenting your results. And quite often you'll have a programmer assigned to do the dull data munging bits, so your main job is to use your experience to think of the appropriate model to suit the data. Quite often you use the same model again and again. Piece of piss and it pays more.

[DimPrawn]

Reading that tulipe query you clearly weren't cut out for it in the first place

20+ years later, and £1m later, I sort of agree with you.