Comments on: SQL Server and NULL Values

By: New SQL Server 2012 Licensing Changes Mean Nothing To Me | SQLRockstar | Thomas LaRock

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:02:43 +0000

[...] using database tools and products to have a similar experience. It’s one of the things I can’t stand about NULLs, there are no standards applied to third party vendors that make default connections to data [...]

By: NULL Counter-post | SQLRockstar | Thomas LaRock

NULL Counter-post | SQLRockstar | Thomas LaRock — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:06:57 +0000

[...] Alton posted a response to my recent blog about a hatred for NULLs so I wanted to drop a quick aside and make sure I pointed out how well he managed to tell me [...]

By: Why I don’t like NULLs and Nullable Columns « Chris Taylor's SQL Server Blog

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:28:53 +0000

[...] are many blogs out there where DBAs share the same or similar views such as Thomas LaRock (Blog|Twitter) in which he talks about the harm they cause by the result of a person not knowing they are [...]

By: Experts Comment

Experts Comment — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 08:13:03 +0000

Below link provide good information about NULL in SQL and how to handle the same in SQL queries

http://www.a2zmenu.com/MySql/Working-with-NULL-Values-in-SQL.aspx

By: Null vs Empty (Zero Length) string « Systems Engineering and RDBMS

Null vs Empty (Zero Length) string « Systems Engineering and RDBMS — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:50:38 +0000

[...] Batman’s post on SQL Server and Null values – here and then the post by Aaron Alton – here. Very good [...]

By: Links for the Week of 2009-03-13 | facility9

Links for the Week of 2009-03-13 | facility9 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:17:08 +0000

[...] and NULL Values, Revisited Aaron Alton takes a good look at NULL values and makes reference to post on the same topic. They both provide good information and well-founded opinions on NULLs and their place in the [...]

By: SQLBatman

SQLBatman — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:41:29 +0000

Yes, they do have a place andmeaning. You happen to mention one area of frustration I have seen quite frequently, and that is how the VS tools will create tables with default datatype settings, and on top of that they can have difficulties working with NULL values. Why can’t we get someone at ANSI to step up and define some standards when it comes to this stuff?

By: SQLBatman

SQLBatman — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:38:06 +0000

I was just thinking about that this morning…what is the overhead on storage and performance for tables built to hold NULL values and as those values are updated? My head started hurting so I had some bacon and felt much better.

By: Chris Harshman

Chris Harshman — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:13:38 +0000

I personally believe that the biggest problem with NULLs in a database is that application languages like those in .NET don’t handle NULL very well. In T-SQL, NULL is a part of every datatype, yet the application developers where I work say they have to do extra work passing NULLs into the database and getting them back out.

Using magic numbers or defaults is not a good idea either. How does the user know the difference between a value listed as 0 because the actual number is supposed to be 0 vs. a value that is 0 but is really unknown? NULLs have a place and meaning.

By: dd

dd — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:33:09 +0000

“they just sit there, in your tables, doing nothing” they do something, for every value that is put in they make the value take more space than necessary. Since null is a value that is outside the range of say an int field the actual field will have to be larger than an int to accommodate null OR int. The only time where they don’t take up much space is when most of the values are null. For every value that is entered they have to take more space, at least a “bit” more (pun) as seems logically necessary to me.

You could use 0 for the finalization date for loans that are not finalized….