I personally wouldn't like the combination of the two. A lot of times
discussions are specific to one database flavor and we don't want to mix up
the two (or many) with wrong information. Now unless the "list" was smart
enough and maybe it is already where you subscribe to the DATABASE-L and
when a message is sent to ORACLE-L it auto forwards to DATABASE-L with the
subject saying from ORACLE-L. That might be ok.
However wouldn't it just be better if we all just moved over to Stack
Exchange/Overflow? I honestly don't go there unless it comes up in my
Google searches so not really sure how good or not it is.
I do like the email though as it is easy to scan my inbox for interesting
topics. And Twitter is blocked at work so that is out for me, plus you are
limited on characters so kind of hard to get your question in it would seem.
My two cents.
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 9:29 AM, Robert Freeman <rfreeman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Tim,
My two cents… and of course, some of this depends on how much time you
really want to invest in all of this… J
There is a lot of benefit in maintaining the Oracle specific focus of
ORACLE-L:
– Technology specific content means that there is less sifting
through the “cross-pollination” of topics to get to the technology specific
question you have. Purity is important I think.
– I would suspect that technology specific lists will attract those
who specialize in those specific technologies. A pure stack is probably
likely to get more authoritive answers than a watered down stack.
o I’ve seen technology neutral boards/lists often provide inaccurate
information posted by folks who are not spending a lot of time with the
technology they offer answers on. I think you would see a lot more “I
think” or “I guess” kinds of answers.
o I’ve also seen technology neutral boards/lists have holy wars about
the various stacks, that are no fun. Granted, many of those threads
eventually get policed.
– In many cases, standards, processes, terminology and other things
differ across stacks. This could confuse beginners. Things in the Oracle
world change fast enough – multiply that several times for each additional
stack you add to the mailing list.
– You have beginners here often, and I’d be concerned that
cross-technology/stack posting could get confusing for them.
– With all of the stacks, there is such depth and breadth that I’d
be afraid a less focused mailing list would become less useful.
– A less focused technology list will be harder to search for the
answer you are looking for.
This reasoning extends to other active and emerging database stacks, they
should have their own lists.
Then the question that comes to my mind is, can we have our cake and eat
it too?
Why not source, from these DB specific lists, a consolidated and
searchable list from all database specific lists? Something like DBALL-L. I
would think that it would be easy to automate the copying of threads to
such a list? This would be helpful for those who want to look for topics
related to more than one stack.
I am debating if one should allow posts in the DBALL-L list… That would
require some level of moderation to ensure that posts don’t really belong
in a database specific list, though I do suggest a possible DBINTEGRATION-L
list that could be the place to post cross-platform questions.
Second, (just thinking aloud here) with respect to social media - Is there
some way that we can integrate lists like ORACLE-L into social media
platforms like twitter, facebook and linked in (and maybe that’s already
done in some way – I have largely removed myself from social media – I just
was finding the signal to noise ratio - inefficient)?
Is there some way to integrate the technologies so that we can actually
improve the usability of all of them? Perhaps such a thing is more effort
that it’s worth…. I just wonder if there is an ORACLE-L post, if there
should not be some related tweet that goes out to the ORACLE-L twitter
subscribers with maybe a subject and link to the post (just thinking aloud
here – there could be great arguments not to do this). Or a Linked in daily
post with the digest contents of Oracle-L…?
Along with ORACLE-L or MSSQL-L I think there is a good argument for a few
other lists? (depending on how many lists one wants to have/manage).
For example:
– DBALL-L – Integrated list of all *-L lists for those who love
super cross-pollination.
– DBINTEGRATION-L - List services for those trying to integrate
stacks. I think such a list could certainly be cross-stack.
– DBMIGRATION-L – List services for those migrating between
database stacks.
– DBCLOUD-L – List services specific to database cloud offerings
– DATASCIENCE-L – List services related to data science topics.
– DBREPLICATION-L – List services related to replication services
like Golden Gate or Shareplex
– DBRETIREEARLY-L – Self-explanatory – Currently among my favorite
list ideas.
I guess, in part, all of this really boils down to what is the need of the
community? What will drive them to use the tool that has been so wonderful
in the past – Namely Oracle-L.
My thoughts…. VMMV….. Cheers!!
RF
Robert G. Freeman
Deliverer of Data
Businessolver
Cell: 801-703-3405 <(801)%20703-3405>
*Anon:* *Science. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re doing it wrong. If
you don’t correct those mistakes, you’re doing it really wrong. If can’t
accept that you’re mistaken, you’re not doing it at all.*
*From:* oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@
freelists.org] *On Behalf Of *Stefan Knecht
*Sent:* Thursday, March 15, 2018 10:48 AM
*To:* Tim Gorman <tim.evdbt@xxxxxxxxx>
*Cc:* ORACLE-L <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* Re: From ORACLE-L to DATABASE-L?
Personally, my vote would be oracle-only. Perhaps add a second list
maintained with the same style that is for other DBMS.
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 10:42 PM, Zahir Mohideen <zahir.dba@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Tim -
it is a great idea to expand oracle_l to database_l .
My question is , if we were to expand , are we restricting the
discussions to RDBMS only or include NOSQL dbs as well.
Usually , we ( I am also in SQL server side ) communicate in Twitter with
#sqlhelp tag .
- Zahir
Zahir Mohideen
http://mfzahirdba.blogspot.com/
*Nothing so GREAT was achieved without enthusiasm*
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 10:56 AM, Tim Gorman <tim.evdbt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So, of course, I ask *Oracle* people about it. :)
This thread is a good argument for expanding ORACLE-L to DATABASE-L.
There is a vibrant technical community in SQL Server and it is long past
time that these communities cross-pollinated better.
As this thread shows, it isn't that one or the other DBMS is better, but
they can be different in subtle ways which can trip up even the most
experienced of us.
And, as this thread shows, many of us are tasked with administering both
DBMS packages, in addition to PostgreSQL and MySQL.
I'm proud to cite my wife, Kellyn <http://dbakevlar.com/>, as an example
of this breed of renaissance geek, as she is currently president of both
the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group <http://rmoug.org> and of the Denver
SQL Server users group <http://denversql.org>, and she is likely soon to
become the first person in the world to achieve both Oracle ACE Director
(now alumnae) and Microsoft MVP recognition.
One noticeable difference between the two communities is age. On average,
Kellyn and I find attendees at SQL Server users group events to be about 10
years younger than Oracle users group events, based on unscientific eyeball
observation. Also, the SQL Server users group community has a much larger
percentage of women attendees and speakers (i.e. about 40% for SQL to about
20% for Oracle).
As a result, while the ORACLE-L list has been yakking along happily here
on email for the past 20 years, the SQL Server community has been largely
conversing on Twitter. Both communities blog at about the same rate and
volume (in my opinion), and both communities seem to use LinkedIn to the
same degree (in my opinion). So, the biggest difference in online
communication style seems to be email vs tweets.
So, if we were to go through the effort of changing from ORACLE-L to
DATABASE-L (leaving aliases from ORACLE-L to point to DATABASE-L so folks
can still find us), we would find adoption by the SQL Server community to
be slow, because they would have a struggle paying attention to, and
responding to, a high-volume email list. There are undoubtedly good ways
to integrate email and Twitter, and I'm sure they can be quite seamless,
but the first question is: what do y'all think?
How do you personally feel about discussing and learning about SQL Server
as well as Oracle? Would it enhance your prospects?
On 3/15/18 07:23, Rich J wrote:
On 2018/03/15 07:34, Jeff Smith wrote:
Brent is a friend and an ex-coworker. He wanted to share the background of
this customer's scenario, in case it would help you with yours.
I let Brent know some folks were having...fun...with his take on
autocommit.
Jeff
*Heh heh heh, I can only imagine. The difference on optimistic vs
pessimistic concurrency nailed it though - the default combo of optimistic
& implicit transactions makes sense in Oracle, and the default of
pessimistic and automatic transactions makes sense in SQL Server. It's when
you change only one of those two settings that you're screwed.*
*The blog post stemmed from an app that had been written by SQL Server
people, and then an Oracle guy came in and made a few changes. He switched
to implicit transactions without understanding that everybody was doing
single-line inserts/updates all over the place in code, not bothering to
set transactions. He didn't understand the impact of what he was doing.
(Not an Oracle jab by any means - the guy was well-meaning but just not
prepared.)*
*We got called in because performance went straight into the toilet. Even
worse, rollbacks were rolling back completely unrelated transactions, and
nobody knew why, hahaha*.
Ah, that context adds a lot to the assertion. I still disagree that
autocommit is a good practice for applications, whether it's Oracle or SQL
Server, but I understand where Brent's coming from.
And my intent wasn't to have "fun", but a sanity check for myself. IT
changes constantly outside of my narrow focus, and as I've been following
Brent's blog for years, that entry offers an opinion that is completely
backwards of my understanding of how any modern RDBMS should work.
So, of course, I ask *Oracle* people about it. :)
Thanks all for the sanity check!
Rich
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