Robert/Tim,
My $0.02c..
Cross pollination of technical discussions would
mostly hurt if the subject and threads randomly (or if scope of discussion
warrants it) switch / oscillate between multiple rdbms topics.
Outside of that, we can / should be able to embrace a larger / generic
distribution list. Of course (to say the obvious), there need to be
enforcement of ground rules (say - subject header having a nomenclature for the
rdbms
in focus/under discussion). This way, discussions
a won't get watered down per se.
Even though, I agree with the point about the purity of the topics (rdbms or
focus area specific), there is a larger benefit to the entire technical
community to broaden the scope of these discussions to better understand the
architectural or operational issues encountered by the community members facing
the multi-vendor (or open source) rdbms deployments in the market place.
So, if most team members truly wish, purity of technical discussions &
multiplicity of rdbms can co-exist peacefully (😀) in the generic database
related distribution list.
Regards,
Rajeev
On Mar 15, 2018, at 12:29 PM, 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
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@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 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, as an example of this breed of renaissance
geek, as she is currently president of both the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users
Group and of the Denver SQL Server users group, 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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