Re: Re: Your new book

As much as you can get. If not for Cary's book, you'll need abstract algebra for dealing with W2 forms and taxes.

On 2003.10.23 08:12, rgaffuri_at_cox.net wrote:
> if i want to improve my math skills how much undergraduate math would you
> recommend?
> >
> > From: Paul Drake <discgolfdba_at_yahoo.com>
> > Date: 2003/10/23 Thu AM 02:29:24 EDT
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> > Subject: Re: Your new book
> >
> > Ryan,
> >
> > I do not recall seeing a single dy/dx or integrand in the text.
> > The type of math that he used, I saw in high school, and that was in the
> US, at a public school. Cary easily could have used "real" math to prove
> his
> points. He didn't. He used graphical methods, visual basic and intuition.
> But
> mostly algebra. Back in the schools that I attended, pre-algebra was in 8th
> grade, geometry in ninth, Algebra II in 10th, Trig in 11th and Calculus
> senior year. Granted, I could have placed out of 3 courses freshman year of
> college, as my high school kicked arse. If it were more the norm, the US
> would still be riding a rising productivity curve. Too bad all that what is
> promoted most here is "entertainment".
> >
> > If anything, it underscored the overall problem in the US, that we don't
> grow grad students natively, we import them. Yeah, you don't have to have a
> M.S. in Comp. Sci. to be a DBA, but being able to understand (not
> necessarily
> derive) things from first principles goes a long way. But then again, I'm
> skewed. Engineering undergrad at Carnegie Mellon has a way of making or
> breaking you. And then you realize at some point, how few people get such an
> opportunity.
> >
> > btw_1, Where is Bill Nye these days?
> >
> > btw_2 , Ryan, in engineering, one takes at least 4 semesters of university
> level mathematics. If you were on the "H & SS", "H and best dressed" or
> Humanities and Social Sciences track, you might never have seen an ordinary
> differential equation, even in a calc class. The real question is, did you
> memorize a few formulas to get by, or did you learn math? did you gain any
> understanding? understanding you take with you, long after the mesmorized
> formulas have been dissolved by enough thursday night martinis.
> >
> > one equation could explain more than an entire chapter of text. no sense
> cutting out the meat just to dumb it down.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> > Ryan <rgaffuri_at_cox.net> wrote:
> > if someone wants to dig into the type of math you are using in your book
> in
> > more depth, what level of math expertise would you recommend? Do you have
> to
> > go beyond college level calculus ?
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L"
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 10:54 PM
> >
> >
> > > Dennis,
> > >
> > > Thanks. In fact, I feel the same way about this as many of you who have
> > > written about the book in the prior two days. I think the material that
> > > ended up being Part II needed to be studied, refined, and documented.
> > > And I believe it is important that this material be written in a BOOK
> > > instead of only in some electronic medium. Without Part II, I'm not sure
> > > many readers would have accepted the possibility of the rather
> > > remarkable results I promise in Parts I and III.
> > >
> > > As it happens, Part II seems to have begun serving a number of uses,
> > > some of which I didn't anticipate, including:
> > >
> > > - Those who want to take our work further can do so without having to
> > > reinvent everything we've learned.
> > > - Those who want to debate our approach can argue about it on an
> > > unambiguous technical foundation.
> > > - Forcing ourselves to write everything down in a consumer-ready format
> > > guided our making the Hotsos Profiler into a much more robust and
> > > complete product than it would have been otherwise.
> > > - Similarly, it tightened the content in our educational courses
> > > considerably. We now have excellent training material for Hotsos
> > > employees, and perhaps (if O'Reilly is lucky) university students of
> > > Oracle performance analysis around the world.
> > > - Funny enough, it turns out that some of the MySQL guys are at least
> > > considering the idea to integrate much better response time
> > > instrumentation into their kernel as a result of the book.
> > >
> > > But Mr. Milligan is absolutely right: you don't have to be able to prove
> > > why something works in order to use it. I tried to design Parts I and
> > > III to give you what you need to make the method work, regardless of
> > > whether you are interested in proving out the theory. I just didn't feel
> > > like it would be responsible to sell Part III without including Part II.
> > >
> > >
> > > Cary Millsap
> > > Hotsos Enterprises, Ltd.
> > > http://www.hotsos.com
> > >
> > > Upcoming events:
> > > - Performance Diagnosis 101: 10/28 Phoenix, 11/19 Sydney
> > > - SQL Optimization 101: 12/8-12 Dallas
> > > - Hotsos Symposium 2004: March 7-10 Dallas
> > > - Visit www.hotsos.com for schedule details...
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > DENNIS WILLIAMS
> > > Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 6:15 PM
> > > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > >
> > > I think Cary deserves a vote of appreciation for Part II of his book. I
> > > feel
> > > (based on the comments of others, haven't waded through it myself yet)
> > > that
> > > he has put Oracle performance tuning on a solid mathematical foundation.
> > >
> > > My first education was engineering and I learned was that a practice
> > > that rests on a solid mathematical foundation is not easily overturned.
> > > A
> > > great example for we DBAs is relational database theory, which rests on
> > > relational algebra. Fads come and go that threaten to obsolete the
> > > relational database, but since none of them has a solid mathematical
> > > foundation, they soon fade.
> > > If you gave me a quiz on relational algebra today, I'd probably
> > > flunk
> > > it, like many people that daily work with relational databases. But that
> > > doesn't stop us from making use of the fruits of the theory. Similarly,
> > > I
> > > don't think we need to understand Part II in detail to successfully use
> > > Cary's methods to tune an Oracle database.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Dennis Williams
> > > DBA
> > > Lifetouch, Inc.
> > > dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 4:10 PM
> > > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I also am not Cary .....
> > >
> > > I have however read Cary's book from cover to cover (including spending
> > > rather too long on a romantic weekend in paris with my wife
> > > contemplating a
> > > 10046 trace parsing project :(). I Am rereading and intend to require my
> > > fellow DBAs and sysadmins to read it. However to attempt to answer your
> > > questions.
> > >
> > > Yes it is different from every other tuning book out there (though there
> > > is
> > > *some* overlap with Christpher Lawson's 'the art and science of oracle
> > > performance tuning'). The difference is exactly in the approach - the
> > > central thesis of the book is (something like) that by utilizing well
> > > specified and targeted extended sqltrace data for problem user actions
> > > the
> > > Oracle performance analyst can quickly and efficiently resolve Oracle
> > > performance problems that debilitate the business performance of Oracle
> > > based systems. This approach - to target problem business processes,
> > > find
> > > out why they run slowly and optimize them, is exactly what the RDBMS
> > > world
> > > needs (IMO).
> > >
> > > In addition the method Cary and Jeff describe predicts when it will (and
> > > more importantly) won't be of use.
> > >
> > > Is it more readable than others? Here I do have some reservations. The
> > > first
> > > and last third of the book are extremely readable, and the character and
> > > humour of the authors shines through. The formal central section will
> > > put
> > > off some (maybe a significant number) of readers though. Stephen Hawking
> > > in
> > > 'A Brief History of Time' writes "Someone told me that each equation I
> > > put
> > > in the book would halve the sales. I therefore resolved not to have any
> > > equations at all. In the end, however, I did put in one equation,
> > > Einstein's
> > > famous equation E=mc˛." Cary and Jeff have either not been given this
> > > advice, or ignored it in the interests of accuracy. The advantage that
> > > this
> > > gives is that the book has a formal methodology that puts others to
> > > shame -
> > > the disadvantage is that folk look at pages filled with equations full
> > > of
> > > queueing theory and Greek symbols and react badly. I hope that the
> > > advice is
> > > wrong, but fear that it may not be.
> > >
> > >
> > > Niall
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com [ mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com
> > > ] On
> > > > Behalf Of Michael Milligan
> > > > Sent: 21 October 2003 17:49
> > > > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > > > Subject: Your new book
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Cary,
> > > >
> > > > I don't mean to ask you to brag, but can you please tell me
> > > > if your new book, of which I've heard good things, is
> > > > different in any way than other Oracle Performance Tuning
> > > > books out. Does it take a different approach? Does it teach
> > > > different methodologies? Is it more readable? I'd be very
> > > > interested in your own assessment. What did you try to
> > > > accomplish with this book?
> > > >
> > > > TIA,
> > > >
> > > > Michael Milligan
> > > > Oracle DBA
> > > > Ingenix, Inc.
> > > > 2525 Lake Park Blvd.
> > > > Salt Lake City, Utah 84120
> > > > wrk 801-982-3081
> > > > mbl 801-628-6058
> > > > michael.milligan_at_ingenix.com
> > > >
> > > >
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> > > > Author: Michael Milligan
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> > > >
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> > > --
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> > > --
> > > Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
> > > INET: DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM
> > >
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> > > --
> > > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > > --
> > > Author: Cary Millsap
> > > INET: cary.millsap_at_hotsos.com
> > >
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> > Author: Ryan
> > INET: rgaffuri_at_cox.net
> >
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>

-- 
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
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Author: Mladen Gogala
  INET: mgogala_at_adelphia.net

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