Learning is not a spectator sport

Complete listing of posts

  • End of an era …

    Four years ago I wrote about a little volunteer project that my partner did.  A small association that provided outdoor experiences and facilities for kids with physical impairments needed a system to record member and volunteer details, plus a few other bits and pieces.  We built an Apex solution running on XE.  This week, they Read more

  • 12c Release 2, set feedback enhancement in SQL PLus

    There’s a nice little touch to the “set feedback” command in SQL PLus in 12.2. There is a new “only” clause in the SET FEEDBACK command, so you can run queries but the resulting rows are not shown in the display. They are still queried, fetched and “returned”, but just rendered to the screen. Here’s Read more

  • Pi Day, March 14

    Geeks around the world will be celebrating Pi day, a shameless excuse to put the month before the day like the Americans do so we can talk Mathematics on “3.14” day So what better way to show how cool SQL can be with some expressions to approach Pi with continuous series All we really need Read more

  • 12c Release 2 – Transparent Data Encryption online !

    It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that even if you have incredibly stringent controls on user authentication, user authorisation etc, that wont save you if your data on disk is not encrypted.  All you need is an errant tape, a missing disk, a misplaced flash stick…and kersplat, someone has a copy of your Read more

  • TimTams, Twelve Two, and tete-a-tete !

    What do you do when you’re an Australian, you’re at Oracle Headquarters, 13,000 kms from home you bump into someone whilst grabbing a coffee Well…naturally, you lure them over with a packet of our famous Australian chocolate biscuits, grab a camera and have a chat ! Maria Colgan and I chew the fat over why Read more

  • Oracle Database 12c Release 2 is here !

    Since OpenWorld 2016 when we first saw some of the cool features in Oracle Database 12c Release 2, many IT professionals out there have been exploring the release via our various cloud offerings, but if your organization has not yet embraced the cloud, then March 2017 is a great month for you !  Because you Read more

  • Better to be safe than sorry…

    I’ve always been worried about taking a script that is fine to run in my non-production environments (in particular a DROP script) and accidentally running it in a Production environment, shortly followed by the typing up of a fresh resume to look for a new job once the mistake is discovered The standard means of Read more

  • DDL triggers – interesting results

    This question came in on AskTom, yielding a very interesting result when it comes to DDL triggers. To set the scene, I’ll first create a table called T which is just a copy of SCOTT.EMP SQL> create table scott.t as select * from scott.emp; Table created. SQL> desc scott.t Name Null? Type —————————————————————– ——– —————– Read more

  • Duplicate constraints are impossible right ?

    Here’s a very simple example of a table called PARENT being a (surprise surprise) parent in a referential integrity relationship to a (drum roll for my choice of name) CHILD table SQL> create table parent ( p int, constraint PAR_PK primary key (p) ); Table created. SQL> create table child ( c int, 2 p Read more

  • The real question is … why are you NOT blogging

    Colleague Jeff Smith published an interesting post the other day about his “rules and regulations” for blogging, but the overriding theme (Ed: – this is my opinion, I’m not speaking for Jeff)  was that the “what” he blogs about was – anything he’s passionate about, and the “when” was – whenever felt inspired to do Read more

  • Partition count for interval partitioned tables

    When dealing with a RANGE partitioned table, the defined partitions dictate all of the data that can be placed into the table. For example, if I have a SALES table as per below SQL> create table SALES 2 ( cal_year date, 3 txn_id int, … … 24 ) 25 partition by range ( cal_year ) Read more

  • AskTom TV

    Sometimes at conferences I get asked – “How do you know all of the answers for the AskTom questions?” I’d love to say “Because we’re super smart” but the reality is, we’re just like anyone else with a passion for database technology.  We like to research things, apply our skills and use our experience to Read more