RE: ERD generation tool - Active Comparisons

Well, for one thing, if your developer, Dom Phoc, starts changing crap in your database (as has happened to me in the past) a compare to the dev model would be great because my development changes would be in the model, not in the test or production databases. In that specific case I had to TRUST him (what? trust him after what he just did?) to change everything back, or restore from a backup, which would have been very time consuming.

I was one large ball of raging hormones that day and I took it all out on him. We don't work on the same projects anymore.

Lisa Koivu
Oracle Database Administrator
Fairfield Resorts, Inc.
5259 Coconut Creek Parkway
Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA 33063

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Peterson [SMTP:keithpson_at_yahoo.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 5:50 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: ERD generation tool - Active Comparisons
>
> Am I speaking to the wind ....
>
> For Compares, why would you compare the MODEL with the
> DATABASE...like going from US to London via Tokyo...
> ... and you get to pay more, like... you pay not for
> distance, but for "time in the air"... If a tool takes
> longer to do something, makes more mistakes, is bumpy
> and complex... you get to pay more.
>
> For compares, someone tell me what beats
> ActiveCompare:
> http://www.iraje.com/compare-diff.htm
>
> http://www.iraje.com/ActiveCompare_viewlet.html
>
>
> ...and I will switch my tool.
>
> Keith
>
>
>
>
> Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 13:00:31 -0800
> To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L"
> <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Reply-to: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
> to Address Book
> Organization: Fat City Network Services, San Diego,
> California
>
>
>
> ERWin's not much better. Has some better modeling
> capability as you
> might guess, but has some VERY annoying quirks too.
> You also need to
> drill down endlessly when doing a compare and I have
> seen it see two exact
> tables (even case being the same) and see them as
> different. The DO
> have a MATCH button that I would SUPPOSE allows you to
> re-align them, but
> I would not know for sure as I get Dr. Watson's
> whenever I press it and
> the whole thing crashes!
>
> I had a nice BUG last week only. Generated scripts
> for the model, ran
> them on the db, then ran a compare from the model to
> the db. Darn
> thing came up with differences....
>
> Furthermore, I find that if you work from the Logical
> Model (like I
> do), the changes are not equally presented to the
> physical model.... (ie
> name change./datatype change) and its NOT consistent
> with this behavior
> either!
>
> It has a report builder, but it doesn't report on
> datatypes entered on
> the Logical side (even though the datatype on the
> physical MAY be
> different) = therefore you can't run any consistency
> reports between the
> Logical and Physical models.
>
> I have been using ERWin both as a modeling tool and a
> change repository
> for the model. I like to run several reports
> against a model (I call
> them the Sanity Checks Reports).... you know, make
> sure that all
> columns named the same (ie DESCRIPTION) are of the
> same datatype, length,
> etc.....
>
> Anyhow, I can rant and rant.
>
> ERWin's BIGGEST Annoyance is my book is that there is
> no UNDO feature
> and it is rather easy to accidentally drop and drag
> either a
> relationship or field when re-aligning the model......
> ugh....
>
> I wish we could get together a group and benchmark
> some relatively
> unknown but stable modeling tool who's maker will
> listen to the DBA
> community and put their name in the market (IE. give
> them market share) in
> exchange for giving our community a tool that would
> actually work for us
> and work well!
>
> Rant over now.
>
> Please continue.......
>
>
>
> >
> > * It cannot handle obejcts (CLOBs, BLOBs, ...) that
> are not stored
> inline.
> > If you place CLOBs in a different tablesapce form
> the rest of the
> row, you
> > will have to manually manipulate the DDL.
> >
> > * It has no schema-schema comparision capabilities,
> only
> schema-model.
> >
> > * Examining the results of schema-model comparision
> is extremely
> awkward,
> > time consuming, and aggravating. One has to
> continually "drill down"
> in a
> > miniscule window using the "Windows Explorer" type
> interface to see
> anything
> > meaningful.
> >
> > There are some other significant deficiencies also.
> I talked to them
> about
> > all these and more. What I got was the same answer
> that I got two
> years ago
> > also. "We'll put it on the enhancement request
> list." or "We've
> been
> > intending to do that."
> > Personally, I think that packages have been around
> long enough that a
> > multi-thousand dollar per seat tool should be able
> to handle them by
> now!
> >
> > Unfortunately, I don't know of any great modeling
> tool right now.
> Designer
> > does everything, but definitely has some quirks. If
> you use another
> RDBS,
> > it probably won't handle it well. In addition, it
> wants to do things
> its
> > own way, not your way. Some also say it has the
> world's most obtuse
> > interface. Simply sit someone that is familiar with
> modeling, but
> > unfamiliar with Designer, down in front of the GUI
> and see how long
> it takes
> > them to generate a readable ER diagram! (To make
> this "fair",
> compared to
> > other tools, don't give them any documentation other
> than the online
> help,
> > but start it up and connect it to a database before
> you turn it
> over). It
> > could be days, perhaps weeks!
> >
> > Don Granaman
> > [OraSaurus]
>
>
>
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> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
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> Author: Keith Peterson
> INET: keithpson_at_yahoo.com
>
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-- 
Author: Koivu, Lisa
  INET: lisa.koivu_at_efairfield.com

Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California        -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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