The solution is relatively easy, and the problem could maybe be fixed (or at least warned about) by Adobe (and I just filed a bug report for it). Until that happens, I wanted to share this. For more, read on.

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• ColdFusion 11 Update 5 prerelease build now available
• ColdFusion 10 Update 16 prerelease build available

This is on top of the release earlier this week of the final version of CF11 Update 4 (which had been in prerelease for a couple of weeks):

• ColdFusion 11 Update 4 released

Great to see the CF team cranking on the bug fixes. I count just under 120 in the technotes for CF11 update 5, and just under 40 in CF10 update 16. And there were just under 200 fixes in Update 3 of CF11, which again was released just in recent weeks.

Yeah, but what about all those bugs?

Yes, I know some could twist things and say "yeah, but the problem is that there are so many bugs to be fixed". Sure.

Still, for others who may have longed to see their bugs fixed, here's hoping that these or any of the other recent updates may address those for them.

File your bugs, vote for others

And let this be a lesson to folks: if you've got a problem, don't just publicly complain about it. File a bug report. That said, since the team does need to triage bug fixes and does take votes into account, some may want to publicize their particular bug to garner interest in it.

But please: don't ask me to do that for you here. :-) You may notice I don't even do that myself here for bugs I report. I trust that the system works and important problems will be found and voted upon by folks.

The recent spurt of bug fixes, as well as some specific responses to issues I've raised (some, not all), does give me hope that the process is working.

Do remove any prerelease updates when things go final

Oh, and if you may have applied (or will apply) one of the prereleases, don't forget to uninstall it when the final comes out. And change your CF Admin "update settings" page to point back to the original URL (versus the prerelease update feed URL). Use the provided "restore default URL" for that. In fact, I'd recommend you do that right after downloading a prerelease, so you don't forget.

Sadly, I have found that even with the default URL restored, we are NOT notified that a new final release is ready if we have the prerelease installed. That's unfortuante. Until that may be fixed, do keep an eye on that CF team blog above. It's a great resource of what's going on with CF.

Wouldn't it be nice to know, at any moment (such as when things are going badly), just what queries (or stored procedures or commands) were running in the database at that point in time?

Well here's good news: if you're running SQL Server, the following query will show you just that, the currently running SQL statement(s) and some additional details about each query including their duration, their database name, the program executing the SQL, and much more.

(If you're running MYSQL, you may know that you can get pretty much the same info with SHOW PROCESSLIST. Or if you want to do it as SQL, you can use SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PROCESSLIST WHERE COMMAND != 'Sleep'. Sadly, it's just not that simple in SQL Server, it seems, thus the need for this entry.)

The code for SQL Server

Following is the code, and then some discussion of it:

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The book is a quick read, and really well done, including a discussion of what statistics are, why they're important, how to diagnose trouble with them, and how to use the SSMS interface and/or SQL statements/commands to better understand them.

There are plenty of screenshots and it's written in a tutorial manner. And while it's from 2010 and covers only up to SQL Server 2008, most of the concepts apply just as well to SS 2012 and beyond, and of course many organizations are still running on SS 2008 or even earlier!

Most important, Schmeling explains why it's important that you take responsibility to both create and maintain statistics (rather than leave it as something that "the database" should handle. And if you are leaving it as something "the db should handle", you can use this to make sure that person is doing their job with respect to statistics.)

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