With the recent changes to Nullables in v2.0, I wanted to go back to some old tests that had not been very satisfying when I ran them over a year ago.

One was comparing the speed of using a Nullable<T> and testing to see if has a value or not with HasValue to the speed of a just checking for either a null or default value in a system.type.

Here were my results from doing this in July 2004

You will see that a Nullable<Int32> test was much slower than Int32>0 and a Nullable<object> test was slower than object = = null (or IsNull in VB).

Now with the August 05 CTP, things have sped up. One thing to note is that you can’t use Nullable<T> with already nullable values as you could before. So now I am only testing against int.

Using the same 500,000 interations with a Nullable<int>, although the  gap is shrinking, is still somewhat slower. Three tests gave these results

• Nullable<int>.HasValue   vs. int>0
• 4.7668 ms       3.2459 ms
• 5.9834 ms       3.4426 ms
• 4.0203 ms        3.8122 ms

Still, I much prefer Nullable<T> over the other test. What do you test for with dates?

Vermont SQL Server Special Interest Group Next Meeting

When:  6-8pm, Tuesday, September 13th.   ** Different date than usual! 
Where:  Competitive Computing, Inc. Colchester, VT. 
Speaker:   Rushabh Mehta

Rushabh is a business intelligence consultant for Solid Quality Learning and the principal ETL architect for Raymond James Financials. In the past 4 years, Rushabh has been instrumental in the design and development of major data warehouse initiatives for clients in retail and finance. He has architected and developed BI and ETL processes for systems ranging from a What-if analysis system that determine pricing strategies for a retail client; to a multi-terabyte financial decision support system. As the principle ETL architect, Rushabh is currently helping Raymond James Financials shape and achieve their enterprise BI strategy.

Rushabh is also currently serving on the board of directors at PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) and he regularly speaks at conferences on SQL Server and Business Intelligence. He has also authored courseware for SQL Server Integration Services which is delivered through Solid Quality Learning. 
  
Topic:  Highlighting the SQL Server 2005 Relational Engine

SQL Server 2005 provides developers and DBAs with many new enhancements for indexing and performance. In this session we will discuss some of the more important relational storage engine highlights: -Table and index partitioning -Indexes with additional columns included -Correlated datetime statistics -Snapshot Isolation Level -Indexed view enhancements -Persisted computed columns -Disabling indexes. At the end of this session you will have a clear picture of how and when to use these new features to drive development of more highly performant, scalable SQL Server-based applications. A working understanding of SQL Server 2000’s indexing features is recommended but not required.

Meeting Notes:       
                – Pizza for the meeting will be provided, big thanks to Quest Software for sponsoring. Please RSVP to rsvpsql@vtdotnet.org
                – If the elevator doesn’t work, please take the stairs to the 4th floor

If you are looking for me at PDC, you can be sure to find me in this session by Pablo Castro!

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

A reminder to myself since I kind of missed the note in the VS2005 Documentation that says:

The DebuggerBrowsableAttribute is not supported by Visual Basic in the .NET Framework 2.0

Scott Nonnenberg was kind enough not to point out my mental block.

I somehow looked over it a number of times when looking for a clue about the problem I was having.