Learning is not a spectator sport

Complete listing of posts

  • Index compression–working out the compression number

    Richard Foote did a series of informative posts on Index Compression which concludes that there is whole lot of positives about index compression, and very little negatives.  But obviously one critical thing is choosing the right number of leading columns to compress. Is it just “take a guess?” .  Luckily, Oracle has taken the guesswork… Read more

  • Navigating the world of Oracle database documentation

    If you head on over to http://docs.oracle.com/en/database/ you’ll be both amazed and dismayed by the volume of documentation you can find about the database.  If you’re a seasoned Oracle professional, then you probably dont think twice about finding PIVOT examples in Chapter 18 of the Data Warehousing guide But for the novice, whether it be… Read more

  • Joining Oracle

    Last month I joined Oracle after nearly 20 years of working with their technology.  Some people congratulated me on my new role, others told me that going from working solo to working for a massive organisation would be disaster.  In the latter case, this was often associated with an impassioned “But why?” To be honest,… Read more

  • Things that are there but you cannot use

    I did a “desc” command on the STANDARD package today, the package that helps define PL/SQL, and saw the XOR function! SQL> declare 2 x boolean; 3 begin 4 x := XOR(true,true); 5 dbms_output.put_line(case when x then ‘TRUE’ else ‘FALSE’ end); 6 7 x := XOR(true,false); 8 dbms_output.put_line(case when x then ‘TRUE’ else ‘FALSE’ end);… Read more

  • Continuous Delivery – Moving to SECUREFILE

    You’ve been google-ing and you’ve seen articles (for example) like http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/sql/11g-securefiles-084075.html and you’re pretty pumped about using SECUREFILE features. You’ve got lots of existing CLOB data and moving to SECUREFILE is going to make your life much easier. You’re also excited about the fact that none of your code has to change – you just… Read more

  • Continuous delivery…

    “Continuous Delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach in which teams keep producing valuable software in short cycles and ensure that the software can be reliably released at any time” (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_delivery) Perhaps a simpler definition is “CD is the currently the cool thing to do” Sarcasm aside, there’s a lot of common sense in… Read more

  • Partial uniqueness

    I had an interesting request recently from a developer. “ I have a table created as per below create table C_TEST ( col_1 varchar2(3), col_2 varchar2(3), col_3 number ); The rows defined by col_1, col_2, col_3 must be unique but only when col_3 is present. If col_3 is not present, then we allow anything. Hence… Read more

  • 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