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We all got shafted by patterns when they became interview questions. Just search this site for a belly laugh.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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Another good observation! 
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The problem is not with the patterns. When used with thought, they indeed help in solving problems without causing new ones.
The real problem are the people. The simple version is the Voodoo programmer. Those people have little to no understanding of what they are doing. Instead, they try to copy and paste code snippets, of which they must have an impressive collection. And this collection is then used like a book of magic spells for and against every situation.
More 'advanced' Voodoo programmers have made an art of at least appearing less stupid. They have endless lists of rulrs, coventions and patterns (which in reality are just nice names for their magic code snippets) and want everyone to follow these rules just as religiously as they are.
Remember, they more often than not they really don't understand their magic spells. They use things because 'it's a pattern', or beacause 'Mr. ABC said so in his book/article/blog/speech/whatever'.
In some companies management really likes religious code monkeys. They are easier to manage, cost less and look sufficiently competent to outsiders.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
I hold an A-7 computer expert classification, Commodore. I'm well acquainted with Dr. Daystrom's theories and discoveries. The basic design of all our ship's computers are JavaScript.
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Is this term "Voodoo programmers" your invention?
That is fun. I call them the alchemist for the same reason. An alchemist don't do real magic. An alchemist combine products to create spells or a potions. Most of the time he only read precipices in a book. But for me an alchemist is not a bad programmer. He can be very good in his craft. He just prefer combine thinks than creating things.
And yes today most companies prefer Alchemists or Voodoo programmers
modified 20-Jun-14 3:21am.
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I thought it was "cargo cult programming".
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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Woa, I think I understand magic now! 
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Not everything that's right is obvious. Patterns are a codified set of guidelines and advice, including information about when they're appropriate, and they're useful precisely because it's not always obvious what the right answer is without some guidelines to help you.
I think it's all about your last sentence, people being prescriptive with any guidelines, whether that be design patterns or coding standards or anything else to do with work, loses the point of what the guidelines were there for in the first place.
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I had this argument while I was still in college. A team member had decided the entire major was worthless because we had to use prescribed solutions to everything. Apparently having missed the point that these general solutions can (and should be) modified to fit a situation, and the point of our major was identifying when a pattern would be useful and exactly how to implement it in that situation to best benefit the software and our own sanity.
I mean hell, look at adaptor. It's a stopgap solution to keep you from having to re-write libraries and nothing more. This isn't a sacred text it's a few useful ideas.
But yeah, doesn't stop people from treating it like their personal bible.
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Thou shalt follow the hallowed word of the holy pattern!
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So, a complex query fails with
Quote: Msg 8152, Level 16, State 13, Line 1
String or binary data would be truncated.
Now, which column is it? Surely the engine knows which column it is and could add it to the error message?
We're gonna fix it soon, honest![^]
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What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
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Soon, very soon!
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Isn't that what varchar(MAX) is for?
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NVARCHAR(MAX) is a good think, but has two disadvantages:
1. You can't control where the data stored, in-page or as BLOB
2. Every size is passed so you can't use it for 'sanity' check (where data can not be longer than n)
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: BLOB
Don't you mean CLOB?
Whether I think I can, or think I can't, I am always bloody right!
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I mean like BLOB - out of page...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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If you are suffering from this 10 years - you may start using Profiler...it can help!
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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You can always switch to Oracle. You'll develop a whole new set of gripes. 
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Been there, done that.
Dual - I mean, FFS!
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I understand the reasoning behind the Dual table.
Instead of adding a load of exceptions with possible "features" to the parser, they've added a readonly dummy table.
My personal gripes revolve mostly around the fact that you have a different set of Types depending on whether you're doing pure SQL, procedures or packages.
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Ha! I didn't expect that! Quite amusing though all the same.
"The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s." climate-models-go-cold
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Munchies_Matt wrote: I didn't expect that!
Really?
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No, I thought we were a better team than that, but apparently not.
"The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s." climate-models-go-cold
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An Irishman walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finished all three, he comes back to the bar and orders three more.
The bartender says to him, ‘You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it; It would taste better if you bought one at a time.’ The Irishman replies, ‘Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the other in Australia, and I’m here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we’d drink this way to remember the day we all drank together.’
The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there. The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar and always drinks the same way: he orders three pints and drinks the three pints by taking drinks from each of them in turn.
One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars’ in the bar notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, ‘I don’t want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss.’
The Irishman looks confused for a moment, then the light dawns in his eye and he laughs. ‘Oh, no,’ he says, ‘Everyone is fine. It’s me……..I’ve quit drinking!’
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