Very good observations in my opinion, Bill. When I studied at LSU, one
of my favorite topics was European History, and the excellent teacher
told us (regarding WW 1) that people really knew how to die back then:
50,000 lives lost in the first five minutes of a battle (or something to
that effect), while nowadays the loss of a single life is a major
tragegy (it is, that's not my point).
So back in the old Oracle-days, we really knew how to suffer. Upgrading
from Forms 2.0 to 2.3 required that all #Execmacro statements should end
with the keyword 'nofail'. Upgrading from version 6.0.12 (or was it
6.0.14?) required a full export/import...
We knew how to suffer. The DBA's today have no stamina... uh, wait a
minute, they are pretty much the same DBA's as back then... Hmm. Maybe
they just got tired :).
Oracle's code is SO much bigger now, and so there's not a chance in Hell
it will not have a LOT of bugs now and in all future. Not a chance.
Forget strategy, tactics, plans and lists. There will be only high
states of alertness and a very good network of friends and like-minded
maniacs to help you through the next couple of IT-decades.
Enjoy it, or quit. It's a reflection of the society around us. Take more
chances than ever, stop the automatic habit of being ready to blame
someone else than yourself, and find out that most things will work
anyway - and a few won't, but nobody will blame you, as long as you
showed bravery when confronted with the databases and the layers laid
upon them :).
If you're ever fired for doing the brave thing, then this community will
help you find a job faster than you can say "Ora-600".
Mogens
William B Ferguson wrote:
Personally, while lately Oracle does seem 'buggier' than in the good ole days, I still like working with it, and interacting with the Oracle community. The software seems 'buggier' and more difficult to maintain since they made the 'java' switch, making their distributions easier, but our maintenance more difficult. Though in all fairness, the old hard-coded binaries for each platform wasn't bug-free either. I remember one of my biggest headaches was upgrading from ver. 6 to ver. 7, since we were using Pro*FORTRAN. None of our programs would re-compile under ver. 7, and after some research it turned out to be the exact bug that shipped with the original ver. 6 release (and subsequently patched). So instead of shipping the patched version of Pro*FORTRAN, v6.xxx, they renamed the original unpatched v6 and shipped that.
Mladen's posts are usually full of good information or good for a laugh, depending on his mood. The quick response to questions here on this are great and full of good suggestions.
The OTN discussion forums are really good as well, quick, helpful responses. I'm kind of a one man office where I'm at, and I really miss the interaction with other Oracle folks that I used to have (downsizing sucks). Being able to just wander down the hall and toss around ideas with other Oracle folks is something I really miss, though these other 'avenues of discussion' almost fill the void.
The Oracle community is pretty good at discussing problems and coming up with fixes or workarounds, a lot better usually than Metalink seems to be the last few years. I've worked with other software that didn't have the 'community' behind it, and needless to say I don't work with those other software's anymore.
Just my opinion. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Ferguson
U.S. Geological Survey - Minerals Information Team
PO Box 25046, MS-750
Denver Federal Center
Denver, Colorado 80225
Voice (303)236-8747 ext. 321 Fax (303)236-4208
~ Think on a grand scale, start to implement on a small scale ~
