[bigdubs]

a) i can't say with 100% certainty, but with 99% certainty someone dropped the index. they don't just disappear.

b) i really wouldn't recommend hitting mssql from anything other than the home grown system.data.sqlclient built into .net.

c) there are best practices on when and how to install updates. this is not it.

d) that is totally a pain in the butt and something msft should probably figure out how to have a reasonable option for.

one, very legitimate gripe i have for mssql is the default lock levels on reads. not everything needs to be fully synchronized and having to litter queries with (nolock) feels like bad design.

one, very legitimate gripe i have for pg; no stored procedures. functions are not stored procedures. also multiple result sets for a single query, but i digress.

[lgas]

Genuine curiosity: what do you mean about functions not being stored procedures? What is it you want to be able to do with them that you can't in postgres?

[bigdubs]

pl/pgsql functions require you to define the schema that it returns in the declaration itself; this isn't an issue really as it should more or less be known after you've writing the guts of a query, but it's just more boilerplate.

the key difference is the multiple result sets with different schemas (which you can do with stored procedures but not with functions)