28 July 2010

"Extraneous Info" strikes again - mistake confirmed for 27 July 2010(1261)

Two choices in the 27 July quiz included this phrase "in place of a table or view name." As many players noted, you cannot call a function "in place of" the name of a table or view. Instead, the function invocation must be placed inside a TABLE operator, as in TABLE (my_function()). Thus, two of the choices were scored incorrectly. We have changed the text of the answers to remove this "in place of" clause. We then gave 931 players credit for a correct answer for those two items, and rescored/reranked. AL0 wins an O''Reilly Media ebook for being the first to identify this problem. In this case, one of my reviewers actually noted this problem, but I did not read his critique closely enough and thought that he was referring to something else. Argh.... Regards, Steven Feuerstein
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3 comments:

  1. jhall6228 July, 2010 17:10

    This is less a case of "extraneous info" and more an instance of wording that is insufficiently precise. I interpreted the "in place of" phrasing as a reference to the concept of using a function as a source of rows. Others apparently construed it as prescribing the literal replacement of a table or view name with an unadorned function invocation. The required use of the TABLE operator does not alter the conceptual reading, but it definitely affects the literal view.

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  2. Steven Feuerstein28 July, 2010 17:37

    Good point, John. But people have to be able to interpret the question "literally" - all they have to work with are the words in the quiz. So that is my responsibility: to make sure that the conceptual and literal interpretations are not in conflict.

    SF

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  3. al029 July, 2010 09:54

    I still argue argue that it is an "extraneous info" - as if it is omitted the question becomes unambiguous.

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