I've never been convinced of the necessity to use the NOLOCK hint in t-sql queries, I knew a guy a few years ago that used it incessantly on pretty much every query he wrote. I spotted it again yesterday used (i can only assume) to try and optimise a very complex query. So I decided to do a little research on it and found the following blog post (link) , which seems to suggest that my gut feeling was right... never optimise until you know you have a problem. and always do research on your chosen method of optimisation. In the scenario I saw it used in yesterday it 'could' have caused us some problems. fortunately it appears this 'optimisation' has not yet been let out in the wild so I think we should be OK.
There probably are many scenarios where this hint could be useful , fortunately as of yet I don't think I have come across one. and as the commenter says this 'is just hiding the real problem'
Cheers
TF
