Simple and straightforward often surpasses 'clever and brilliant' in elegance, efficiency and maintainability. It also requires that you have a good understanding of the system you are working with, in this case, Oracle. On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 10:35:52 -0500, Mercadante, Thomas F <thomas.mercadante@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Tom, > > You said: "The more I dig into the current database that I'm troubleshooting > the less I appreciate non-standard, if brilliant, approaches." > > Let me just say, I *hate* clever brilliant approaches compared to standard > straightforward approaches to problem solving. Clever & brilliant to me > mean just what you said - somebody else's "nightmare" long after the person > has left, while straightforward documented processes are much easier to > maintain. > -- Jared Still Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l