Learning is not a spectator sport

Complete listing of posts

  • Security predicates exposed #JoelKallmanDay

    Security predicates exposed #JoelKallmanDay

    Since way back in version 8.1 of the database, there has been a cool feature in Oracle called Virtual Private Database (VPD), which essentially lets you force predicates into SQL statements run by users to ensure that they can only see the data they are entitled to see. Here’s a trivial example, where I’ve decided Read more

  • Soft Deletes via Partitioning

    Soft Deletes via Partitioning

    Community friend Gwen Shapira tweeted this the other day This is a common design pattern in Oracle databases (and many others) use a DELETED_FLAG style column to handle “soft deletes.” Instead of physically removing rows, you mark them as deleted with a flag. This allows applications to retain history, enable easy recovery, and avoid the Read more

  • My Session Picks for AI World – Thursday

    My Session Picks for AI World – Thursday

    Some people think “Since Thursday is a half day I’ll skip it” but some of the best content of the conference will be on Thursday. In particular, one of my favourite speakers Nigel Bayliss will be talking about one of my favourite topics, the optimizer.  There’s a lot of cool stuff on Thursday that you Read more

  • My Session Picks for AI World – Wednesday

    My Session Picks for AI World – Wednesday

    Well, there might be a touch of bias here, but there is definitely one session you must have on your agenda for Wednesday at AI World. In fact, if you go this session in the official catalog you can see that they have highlighted it in red   but other than that, there is also Read more

  • My Session Picks for AI World – Tuesday

    My Session Picks for AI World – Tuesday

    Tuesday is when things really ramp up at AI World, so hopefully you have brought a few work friends with you, because there is a lot over overlapping content that will interest fellow Database and APEX professionals. Tuesday morning If sessions are not your thing, and you’d rather just talk tech at the various demo Read more

  • My Session Picks for AI World – Monday

    My Session Picks for AI World – Monday

    AI World is nearly here, so here are my picks for some cool sessions that might interest fellow Database and APEX professionals. If you can, make sure you are coming into Vegas on Sunday night so you can take advantage of some amazing full day deep dive training on Monday Monday If AI is your Read more

  • The Moment for Database Documentation has come!

    The Moment for Database Documentation has come!

    Confluent Director Adi Polak posted this tweet earlier today regarding SQL and understanding the data model. I’m in agreement with her on both things, namely SQL is not a difficult thing to learn, no matter how much FUD is out there on social media about it being “impossible” for developers to learn. Understanding a data Read more

  • MERGE in 23ai – so much more than RETURNING

    MERGE in 23ai – so much more than RETURNING

    Oracle ACE Andrej Pashchenko recently did a blog post covering a nice addition in 23ai, the ability for MERGE to use the RETURNING clause. Check his post for several examples, but as quick TL;DR, here is a simple example of the evolution. My base will be all people in department 10 and 20 from the Read more

  • Low code is dead

    Low code is dead

    I was watching a live stream recently about using AI tools to generate applications, and obviously “vibe coding” is getting a lot of attention nowadays. My interest here was just trying to stay up to date with my skills on the various development platforms that are getting lots of traction. But during the live stream, Read more

  • Mixing and matching

    Mixing and matching

    I’ve written some complex software in my years as an Oracle professional, but I’m happy to concede that nothing comes remotely close to the complexity that must be present to run the Oracle database. Such an incredible array of features, so many capabilities and 40+ years of backward compatibility is surely an amazing achievement in Read more

  • Troubleshooting External Scheduler Jobs

    Troubleshooting External Scheduler Jobs

    One of the cool but often rarely exploited facilties in the Oracle Job Scheduler is the ability to run tasks outside of the database, for example, shell scripts or other programs on the OS. But it does require getting all the relevant ducks in a row, and if you haven’t, then sometimes the errors can Read more

  • AI World and the power of APEX

    AI World and the power of APEX

    Don’t get me wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the official AI World session catalog for discovering the plethora of amazing content coming up at this years AI World. The main reason I definitely cannot complain is because my session appears at the top of the list! 🤣     But (this one only Read more