Visual Studio 2010 Data Generation

We officially have a decent product now. Sweet!

I just got finished downloading SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 Premium Edition; very excited to try out the database tools, such as Schema Compare, Data Compare, and Data Generator. Especially the Data Generator, because I don't have a good tool to generate a bunch of rows, and since I am always geeking with some idea, I am always having to gen up some meaningful data every time.   Remember that in the previous version of Visual Studio, it worked pretty bad IMHO. Not only that, but you needed to download some additional software - "GDR" - for it to work correctly with expanded data types for SQL Server 2008.  (I won't tell you what I'm thinking "GDR" stands for).  So this thing never worked right, and when I loaded up Windows 7, it didn't work at all. Thank goodness we've finally got a good tool to gen up some good data!

I geeked with this off and on for a couple of days just checking it out.  For the most part it worked great, but I did notice a few strange things right off the bat with my initial test-run of the product.  Just a few odds and ends here and there that I jotted down, but otherwise “highly-recommended”!

1. Large nvarchar columns got timeouts.   Not pretty errors either, just timeout.  These were nvarchar (1000) in length. 
   
2. Timeouts are set for SQLCLI to 15 (in the connection properties) as the default, so make sure and change this to zero.  15 seconds isn't enough time to do much, so change this as soon as possible.
   
   
   
3. When you fire-up "Generate Data" you get this:
   
   
   
   Notice that my Data Source is grayed out; in other words, if you want OLE for instance, you don't get a choice.  Has to be a way to change this, I just haven't found it yet.
   
4. When I refresh to get my data, I get all of the tables checked.  I wished they'd have put a Deselect All button at the top to uncheck them.   If you right click, there's the option to clear them.
   
   
   
5. DELETE is used in the background when you get ready to start data generation to clear out the data in your destination table(s).  This is because, of course, you can't TRUNCATE when you have foreign key relationships on your tables.  Um, how's about maybe disabling them to allow the tool to use TRUNCATE?  I have a billion row table and if I hit delete on that baby, might as well go to lunch or take a long potty break.
   
   
   
   
   Attention: Do not hit yes!
   
   ***UPDATE - This is incorrect. You cannot disable foreign key constraints and use truncate; they have to be dropped.  In order to avoid this problem on large tables the VS 2010 process would have to incorporate script, drop, and recreation of FKs.  This needs to be done manually or be a part of a test script.
   
   
6. Sometimes I got this when given the option to delete old data.  Sometimes a lot.
   
   
   
7. But if I don't remove the data from the destination table first, it seemed to work consistently. 
   
   
   
   
8. Sequential data bound generator - it rulz!  I really like the feature, and seems to work really well in this release.  Notice I did a SELECT * and then choose from my columns.  Not seen in this picture, but I CAN select an OLE provider that I previously created if I choose...doesn't have to be SQLCLI.
   
    
   
9. Documentation (or lack thereof) – all that I can find are some old vids from VS2008.  Maybe we’re too early here and they’re just not out yet.
   

That's all I got.  I'll maybe add some more to what I found and then go look to see if Refactor has been changed from the previous version.

Lee

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Anyone know where Tiger Woods is these days?