Learning is not a spectator sport

Complete listing of posts

  • Oracle Developer awards…chosen by Developers

    I was reading the following post today http://stevenfeuersteinonplsql.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/the-oracle-database-developer-choice.html Oracle are planning on rewarding developers in the following areas: SQL PL/SQL Oracle REST Data Services Oracle Application Express Database Design At first glance I had a bit of a cynical view…it could easily be one of those things where if you come from a company that Read more

  • The technology community

    I remember on a flight to the UKOUG, I was doing what all presenters typically do on a plane.  They enter the cabin with the thought of “OK, I’ll spend most of the flight getting those slides just right”.  Then…a set of broadcast advertisements, safety messages, hot face towels, exit row briefings, beverage services, coffee Read more

  • Upgraded and can’t see the tables you could before ?

    If you take a look at the “alter user” command in the old 9i documentation, you’ll see this: DEFAULT ROLE Clause Specify the roles granted by default to the user at logon. This clause can contain only roles that have been granted directly to the user with a GRANT statement. You cannot use the DEFAULT Read more

  • You never stop learning

    My mate Scott Wesley, whose specialty is Apex, is currently at Kscope having the time of his life (well, I hope so ).  He tweeted this picture last night of his conference badge, mainly about the “I love Apex” buttons, but something else struck me.   Take a look at the last two ribbons attached Read more

  • A new challenge…

    After the last 16 years in the contracting and consulting world, for dozens of clients in Australia and other countries around the world, its time for a change of direction.  Whilst doing work with Oracle systems has always been (and continues to be) rewarding, I realised that a lot of the motivation for being at Read more

  • Optimizer curiosity in 12.1.0.2

    For almost as long as I can remember, the optimizer has had a nifty little trick when you (in effect) try to combine two different usage models within a single SQL.  To explain that, I’m referring to the common scenario of: “If a bind value is provided by the caller, then use it, otherwise it Read more

  • Cross-platform database migration

    Last weekend, we faced one of the larger challenges that we’ve faced in my time at my current client.  Migrate multiple database systems, across multiples sites, all to new hardware (with new endian format), new database version (12.1.0.2)…and of course, try to do it with as small a disruption to the service as possible. We Read more

  • Datapump TTS quick tip

    I was trying to transport a large number of tablespace datafiles from one database to another, and impdp kept crashing with “PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small.” It turns out there is a limit on what you can put on a single line in a parameter file. Hence if you have Read more

  • From Product X to SQL Developer

    I recently worked at a company that used “Product X” for all of it SQL and PL/SQL activities.  There’s no real need to reveal what “Product X” is, because this isn’t a post about whether as a product it was good, bad or somewhere in between.  “Product X” met the needs of the Oracle developers Read more

  • dropping tablespaces and queues – not happy companions

    grrr… SQL> drop tablespace MY_TSPACE including contents; drop tablespace MY_TSPACE including contents * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1 ORA-24005: Inappropriate utilities used to perform DDL on AQ table MY_SCHEMA.MY_QUEUE_TABLE You would think that if you ask to drop a tablespace, then you’re pretty confident that you want all Read more

  • temporary undo in 12c

    This feature seems a no-brainer once you’re on 12c. After all, why would you want your global temporary tables to be hammering away at your redo logs. With that in mind, my initial tinkering with the feature had me getting ready for a “blog rant” because it did not seem to work. Let’s see how Read more

  • NUMBER data type…what harm can it do ?

    There’s a somewhat sour discussion going on based attached to the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZW-uLb52xk Whether you agree or disagree with the video or the comments, or (sadly) the animosity in them, it does lead to an interesting bit of investigation when it comes to data types with arbitrary precision, which was stumbled upon by a Read more