Phoenix-based Knight-Swift Transportation, already the biggest player in the TL market at $4.5 billion revenue last year, is buying Chattanooga, Tenn.-based U.S. Xpress, which ranked ninth in TL revenue last year at $2.2 billion. The deal is valued at $808 million, including assumption of $484 million of debt.

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Lunar Vacation “Sick” I had to see the lyrics of “Sick” in print to pick up on some crucial context – my ear didn’t catch the phrase “luxury apartments” because the melody wraps around the very Wilco-esque chords in a way that puts those two words in separate lines. I initially took this song pretty […]

Cleo Sol “Fear When You Fly” The majority of people making traditional 20th century-style R&B music today are young enough that, almost unavoidably, their frame of reference for the music has been filtered through five decades of sampling in rap. I feel like this gets filtered back into the traditional music in different ways – […]

No one expected the house cat to grow to the size of the Chrysler building. But when it did, we had to fight back. The Tin Robot project was controversial from the start, but, in the end, everyone agreed that we would have been destroyed without it. It all happened during the dead of night in New York City when the gigantic house cat went hunting for food. And by food, I mean anything that skittered across its clawed feet. The lasers fired out of the tin robot, lighting up the night like the sun, and the cat was dead. It fell into Hudson, almost displacing the entire river. That was the last of it. We wrap this cloth around our torsos today in remembrance of that day. $22 | URL | Paypal Credit | S - 2XL ')}

As a general rule, if you're using an RDBMS and can solve your problem using SQL, you should solve your problem using SQL. It's how we avoid doing joins or sorts in our application code, which is always a good thing.

But this is a general rule. And Jasmine sends us one where solving the problem as a query was a bad idea.

ALTER   FUNCTION [dbo].[GetName](@EntityID int)

RETURNS varchar(200)

AS

BEGIN

declare @Name varchar(200)

select @Name =
  case E.EntityType
    when 'Application'  then A.ApplicationName
    when 'Automation'   then 'Automated Process'
    when 'Group'        then G.GroupName
    when 'Organization' then O.OrgName
    when 'Person'       then P.FirstName + ' ' + P.LastName
    when 'Resource'     then R.ResourceName
    when 'Batch'        then B.BatchComment
  end
from Entities E
left join AP_Applications A   on E.EntityID = A.EntityID
left join CN_Groups G         on E.EntityID = G.EntityID
left join CN_Organizations O  on E.EntityID = O.EntityID
left join CN_People P         on E.EntityID = P.EntityID
left join Resources R         on E.EntityID = R.EntityID
left join AR_PaymentBatches B on E.EntityID = B.EntityID
where E.EntityID = @EntityID

return @Name

END

The purpose of this function is to look up the name of an entity. Depending on the kind of entity we're talking about, we have to pull that name from a different table. This is a very common pattern in database normalization- a database equivalent of inheritance. All the common fields to all entities get stored in an Entities table, while specific classes of entity (like "Applications") get their own table which joins back to the Entities table.

On the surface, this code doesn't even really look like a WTF. By the book, this is really how you'd write this kind of function- if we were going by the book.

But the problem was that these tables were frequently very large, and even with indexes on the EntityID fields, it simply performed horribly. And since "showing the name of the thing you're looking at" was a common query, that performance hit added up.

The fix was easy- write out seven unique functions- one for each entity type- and then re-write this function to use an IF statement to decide which one to execute. The code was simpler to understand and read, and performed much faster.

In the end, perhaps not really a WTF, or perhaps the root WTF is some of the architectural decisions which allow this to exist (why a function for getting the name, and the name alone, which means we execute this query independently and not part of a more meaningful join?). But I think it's an interesting example of how "this is the right way to do it" can lead to some unusual outcomes.

The following event took place in Middle-earth on October 25:

• The Dwarves venture into the Mountain (1341)
• The Elvenking's host leave Mirkwood for Erebor (1341)
• The Council of Elrond (1418)
• The Council of Hobbits... and a Wizard.
• [Join us on the Discussion Boards here]

October 25, 2941 (S.R. 1341)

1. The Dwarves venture into the Mountain.

(determined from text)

"Now do be careful!" whispered the hobbit, "and as quiet as you can be!  There may be no Smaug at the bottom, but then again there may be..."

(Tolkien, 1966 Ballantine, p. 224-228 TH)

October 25, 2941 (S.R. 1341) 2. The Elvenking's host leave Mirkwood for Erebor. (determined from text) "...the Elvenking rode forth...  ...marching with many spearmen and bowmen..." (Tolkien, 1966 Ballantine, p. 224-228 TH)

October 25, 3018 (S.R. 1418)

1. Council of Elrond.

(from the appendices)

"Suddenly as they were talking a single clear bell rang out.  'That is the warning bell for the Council of Elrond,' cried Gandalf.  'Come along now! Both you and Bilbo are wanted.'"

(Tolkien, 1965 Ballantine, p. 314-354 FotR)

2. Council of Hobbits... and a Wizard. (from the appendices) "Later that day the hobbits held a meeting of their own in Bilbo's room." (Tolkien, 1965 Ballantine, p. 356 FotR)

The following event(s) took place in Middle-earth on November 3,

• Battle of Bywater, and Passing of Saruman. End of the War of the Ring (1419)
• [Join us on the Discussion Boards here]
• .

 November 3, 3019 (S.R. 1419)

1. Battle of Bywater, and Passing of Saruman. End of the War of the Ring.

(from the appendices)

"...a messenger from the Tookland rode in. He was in high spirits. 'The Thain has raised all our country,' he said, 'and the news is going like fire all ways.…"

(Tolkien, 1965 Ballantine, p. 363-371 RotK)

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