Re: 10G New Features Book

  • From: Mogens Nørgaard <mln@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 01:09:17 +0200

In general, and to me,  the RTFM and CTNOM (Check This Note On Metalink) 
are becoming increasingly rediculous (spelling?!?) to use against fellow 
citizens of the Oracle universe. Allow me to elaborate:

RTFM
====
Well, since the Oracle docs are no longer real books that you can bring 
with you, we're all slowly but surely being reduced to CTRL-F based 
search (no rescue) missions instead of reading through them page by page 
as a book. It's a very fragmented way of learning stuff we use now. For 
those of us who have worked in Oracle Support we know the feeling: Too 
much to cover, by definition not enough time to really learn... GoTo 
CTRL-F, Metalink, Web-IV, etc.

Expecting anybody to actually read all the docs (be they in PDF format 
or printed out using 20.000 pieces of paper or more) is absurd. No - 
none, nichts, nada, ingen - folks today can do that. Inside or outside 
the Oracle firewall... it doesn't matter. It's not humanely possible.

So is it fair to RTFM people on the Oracle docs today? I don't think it 
is, really. And if anybody does, just wait until you can RTFM them back.

CTNOM
=====
This is one I really, really hate. When someone has studied the 
installation manuals, the release notes, the extra notes attached, and 
the warnings posted here and there ... and something still doesn't 
work... they're then told (after some searching inside Oracle using 
Web-IV OR studying dozens of notes that actually require something close 
to Support expertise to interpret) that they should have studied Note 
#42. The flashing red light, the warning sign that THIS WILL GO WRONG is 
not part of some Early Warning System. It's just another Note among 
millions.


Mogens

Daniel Fink wrote:

> Aw, gee Pete. You are so right. My gosh, I feel so shamed... How
> could I have possibly missed it! Instead of wasting my time
> reading the New Features, Concepts and Admin docs (especially
> the sections related to creating a database), I should have
> carefully read Chapter 15 of the Performance Tuning Guide for
> that one sentence about automatic stats gathering.
> 
> ;*)
> 
> Dan
> 
> "Controlling Pete is like herding cats writing COTS packages in
> Java"
> 
> 
> Pete Sharman wrote:
> 
>>And all I can say is that Dan didn't read the manuals thoroughly enough!  :=
>>)
>>
>> =
>>
>>Pete
>> =
>>
>>"Controlling developers is like herding cats."
>>Kevin Loney, Oracle DBA Handbook
>> =
>>
>>"Oh no, it's not.  It's much harder than that!"
>>Bruce Pihlamae, long-term Oracle DBA
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe send email to:  oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.
> --
> Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/
> FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> 

----------------------------------------------------------------
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe send email to:  oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.
--
Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/
FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Other related posts: