Database Underground | Sean McCown » Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus

November 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus

TAGS: SQL Server

Ok, let's get into it again. I'm just trying to do something simple and I'm hitting roadblocks at every turn.

The task is simple: Script out these databases on server1 and create the empty schemas on server2.

I also want to save the scripts so I can do it again and again during my dev cycle. I want to have an identical schema so I can just test my change scripts to make sure they'll run before I put them against my cert environment. Anyway...

OK, so the obvious choice for this task is VSTE for DBAs. It has a schema compare doodad and since I already dumped all the objects in the target DBs, it'll be easy because all the actions will be create.

So I ran the compare and things went just as planned. Then I tried to send it to the query window. Guess what... the script is too big and VS refuses to display it. so it tells me to save it to a file. Ok, I save it to a file and import it into SSMS, which loads it with no problem. However, the script is too big and SSMS refuses to run it. Nice. Now the fun begins.

I then get the idea to split up the script into object scripts... Tables/views, SPs, etc. So I get my first script split up into sections and run it. And of course it fails because even though I have 'include dependencies' checked in VSTE, it's not scripting my views in order. I've got views calling views that haven't been created yet. Now I'm back to SSMS which is crawling. I've got 5500 views to script, and it's been going to an hour and it's only now hitting 1,000.

It would be nice if the MS tools could keep up with the times. Does nobody have big projects in the MS world? I guess they're telling us that if you have a small to mid-size app you're good to go, but otherwise you have to just do the best you can.

Needless to say I'm very discouraged. Once again, my MS tools have taken a relatively simple chore and turned it into an ordeal.

And btw:
Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
Translation: The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.
- Horace (Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC))

Posted by Sean McCown on November 1, 2007 08:34 AM

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