Posted by RickW on 03/07/06 19:42

I'm not troubled at all by your lack of sympathy for my position. I
learn far more from people who disagree with me than from those who
agree, if the exchanges focus on topic-related information, as yours do.

If I understand correctly, you're mulling over an addition to the
standard, motivated a consideration of actual use of the data. Not that
it should matter, but you absolutely have my vote for that.

Clearly, at some point in the process users will need to see data in a
particular order. In these postings I've seen explicit endorsement for
allowing ordering in a stored procedure, but no viable presentation as
to why it's okay to allow it there but not in a view. Falling back on
"by definition" strikes me as mistaking the map for the territory. In
fact, it's more like believing that the map dictates what the territory
can be.

I have an alternate suggestion for the _order_of_v_ proposal. It seems
to me that taking that approach requires you to create a view B in order
to specify that you want in fact to return a result set ordered by the
specification in view A. Without any new definition element, I could
apply any orering I wanted in a hypothetical view B outside the database
tool. So, although I gain the function, the price is another view.

Would it be just as explicit, and save a lot of view creation, to add an
explicit element following all other SQL, such as [RESULTSORDERED]?
(brackets indicate optional element)

If not present, results would be unordered. That leaves all properly
constructed views working exactly as currently prescribed. If present,
being an explicit element of the definition, it violates nothing but
allows for ordering of a result set. This allow people like me to
continue to bypass creating yet another query outside the tool whenever
possible.

In fact, what I think Microsoft should have done was in effect the
solution I propose above. Following their paradigm for things, that
would show up as a new property on views. By default it would be set to
false. If you wanted to return the results ordered, you would have to
set the property explicitly on each view where it mattered.

Is there is a chance in hell of getting such an element added to the
definition of a view? If so, where do I sign up for the campaign?

Thanks for another post that contributes something to the discussion and
points in an interesting direction. I'm eager to see the responses
myself.


Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was
killed by an ugly fact. -- Thomas Huxley

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