Learning is not a spectator sport

Complete listing of posts

  • Vanishing objects; hello ORA-08103

    Vanishing objects; hello ORA-08103

    In the previous post we saw that even though we had done an exchange partition mid-flights through a query execution, the query kept on running to successful completion. The database managed to find the data from the exchanged partition and keep on executing. The logical next question is – is that always the case? What… Read more

  • A very robust query

    A very robust query

    Some times I’m blown away by how the database will try very hard to save you from yourself :-). Consider the following example: I’ve got a table called T. It’s got two columns, X and Y, and it’s partitioned into four partitions, the values being based on X, 1, 2, 3 and 4 for the… Read more

  • The secret APEX performance hack

    The secret APEX performance hack

    Here’s a little secret APEX performance hack if you are running on the Autonomous database. As background, I’m running an Autonomous database with six CPUs and a terabyte of storage. Let me grab a good sized chunk of that terabyte with a single table. I just kept duplicating copies of DBA_OBJECTS until my table got… Read more

  • Signal to noise ratio – the AWR trap

    Signal to noise ratio – the AWR trap

    Its never been easier to analyze an AWR report. With our new oracle skills repository, your favourite agent can do a respectable job giving some insights into the AWR report you created for your database. In my case, once codex has churned through the report using its various skills, the driving recommendation was as below… Read more

  • The new release update experience

    The new release update experience

    For about the last … hmmm…maybe decade or more, when you downloaded a release update from MOS for your database, the patch would consist of a single folder which was the patch number. You would unzip that to temporary location, download a fresh copy of OPatch and then patch your database. OPatch would take the… Read more

  • My APEX installer / patcher

    My APEX installer / patcher

    Hopefully you have just seen that APEX patchset bundle 16 has just been released for 24.2. Of particular note is that a well-publicised Chrome change to deprecate the unload event created some issues in APEX. I regularly create fresh databases to handle questions on AskTOM or for demos in my videos or at conferences, and… Read more

  • The unhealthy obsession with ROLLBACK

    The unhealthy obsession with ROLLBACK

    So I jumped onto an LLM and asked it to give me some PL/SQL to handle a 3-step series of DML statements and out popped the following code: That all looks fine, and the coding style is definitely not unique to LLMs. I see it everywhere. It is always the familiar pattern: begin [dml] [dml]… Read more

  • Unleashing Skills onto my database

    Unleashing Skills onto my database

    You may have already seen that thanks to Kris Rice, we now have a baseline set of Oracle skills available for your favourite AI tools. Check out the skills repo here and if you have any experience with the Oracle database, I encourage you to examine the details and offer any feedback so that this… Read more

  • SQL skills just got MORE important

    SQL skills just got MORE important

    There seems to be a school of thought in the tech community that a robust knowledge SQL is now optional. After all, with modern AI tools able to generate SQL from plain English, it seems “obvious” that we have abstracted away the need to understand the language itself. My thoughts are that the exact opposite… Read more

  • GROUP BY ALL – Is it ALL you ever need?

    GROUP BY ALL – Is it ALL you ever need?

    You have probably seen a couple of cool GROUP BY features that came with Oracle Database 26ai. You can check out the short video below but since you’re on a blog, here’s the TL;DR – You can use the column alias in your GROUP BY, to avoid the annoying duplication of code Old-school way SQL>… Read more

  • Voxxed Days Zurich

    That was my first experience at a Voxxed Days event. Obviously I like Oracle-focussed events, but that can give you a blinkered view of the world. There’s a lot of Java devs out there, and finding out what they are doing, how they are working etc I think is exceptionally valuable.    It was a… Read more

  • Thank you after 21 years

    Thank you after 21 years

    Throughout my long history of working with the Oracle Database, there are some things that often just take for granted, on the assumption that they have always been present. But there was a time in the Oracle landscape where we used to have a whole bunch of weird, complicated solutions to the task of synthesising… Read more