Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Hefty — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:19:12 GMT

//I never considered the possibility that a professional software developer would use a GUI to create a table//

Hmm, that reads as rather sanctimonious!

I often use the GUI to create an initial table schema , particularly look-up tables used to populate dropdowns etc. Then I will modify the DDL which is automatically generated as appropriate.

'Professionals' should also be able to select the most efficent method of getting the job done ;-)

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

SpinLock1977 — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:39:34 GMT

WTF? The link to the whole article lands me on at visualstudiomagazine.com/.../portal.aspx.

I must say, that sucks, because I was really looking forward to this particular article!

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Bennett — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:24:32 GMT

Nice article; sums up the advantages of DDL, and how to go about learning it.

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Yuhong Bao — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:16:20 GMT

In fact, you can consider DDL like SQL Server's command line interface and SQL DDL scripts like batch files.

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Don — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:26:03 GMT

Enterprise _MANAGER_

For managing.

Not for development.

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Craig — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 03:38:11 GMT

Alex,

You know I am SO onboard with you on most topics, but on this you've really lost me. Do you never use the designer in VS.NET, or use a code generator such as Codesmith or MyGeneration to auto-generate repetiive plumbing?

I have been developing for 7 years. I almost always use Enterprise Manager for initial development. Its just much faster. If i'm making changes to an existing database, I'll use EM to script it out for me. Also, others mentioned tools like RedGate and AdeptSql to merge changes automatically. This saves a lot on development time. Its not that i can't write my own DDL, its just that it saves time not to.

Only when I'm doing some REALLY complicated schema migration do I script this all out by hand.

Craig

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Russ — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 23:20:47 GMT

There are also tools for managing schema and data changes for sql server. While they're not free, they can offer a lot of help when managing these kinds of changes. Check out the tools www.red-gate.com (they have a free trial). While you're at it grab their free SQL Prompt. Other companies make similar tools as well.

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Koen — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 05:55:31 GMT

Erich, for SQL server the same tool exists: it's called AdeptSql, there's a free trial available for download.

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Alex Papadimoulis — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:02:51 GMT

"Note that ALTER TABLE doesn't work so hot when you want to add a field in the middle of others and there are a plethora of constraints on the table."

There is no reason that this should be done, ever. Column are *always* assumed to be unordered -- the SELECT statement is what brings them out in a desired order.

"Life isn't as simple as one might think."

Life is as complex as you make it. I can see why you believe it's so tough when you try to do things like this ...

re: Stop Using Enterprise Manager! (Use DDL Instead)

Luke Breuer — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:54:58 GMT

What would be best is to have an option to print out all SQL/DDL run against the server, perhaps with options to filter. This way, instead of always referencing the documentation, one could simply do the action once and glean the relevant information from the generated output. I know that Enterprise Manager allows some of this, but it could to much better, make it much easier to see what's going on, etc.

Note that ALTER TABLE doesn't work so hot when you want to add a field in the middle of others and there are a plethora of constraints on the table. Life isn't as simple as one might think.