I've ranted about this before, but I just can't help but do it again. I absolutely despise the fact that most applications (except browsers and FTP programs) that perform operations over the net do not have a stop command. The worst offender is SQL Enterprise Manager. Let me describe a typical session with EM....
I open it up with the desire to browser a local SQL Server box. I accidently click on the wrong one. The one I happen to click on is a remote box. EM pings the server. And I wait. And wait. While this happens, the application becomes frozen. You can't do jack with it. You can't cancel. You can't open another SQL Server instance. You're stuck.
Another fun example. You right click on an instance so you can update the properties. Every right click is a remote call. If you move your mouse while the call is being made, the right click menu will most likely disappear as soon as it displays.
There is absolutely no reason for all of this! Why not simply perform remote calls only when necessary? As a developer, I don't mind having stale data as long as I know it (via visual cues), especially if it means I don't have to deal with crap like I described above.
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I can't help but pick on EM:
I want to import from one to db to another. I right click on the destination and chose import. I forget the IP of the remote DB and click 'behind' the import wizard so I can scroll up my list of servers and find the IP. But... guess what - you can't because the wizard forces you to either complete it or cancel it. Why? Give me one good reason.
Another fun EM feature: Databases can have multiple users. I had set up a connection to a db server as one user. I needed to set up another user as well. But guess what - you can't have 2 connections to the same server, even if they are in a different group. Sure, I can prompt for login info every time, but why should I have to do that? What is rocket science about allowing for N connections to one SQL Server each with different username/password combos?
You should give Aqua Data Studio a try (www.aquafold.com). You can't do everything with it that EM does, but it is quite good.
a remote call doesn't necessitate that behavior, it's just bad programming (all hail the a-sync callback)