Re: [Newbie] Oracle

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 15:18:45 -0700
Message-ID: <1117145662.736656@yasure>

DJP wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I had a n00b question about Oracle. When people say that they are
> learning (or know) Oracle 8i or 9i or whatever, what exactly do they
> mean? From what I can gather isn't Oracle just a DB server? So isn't
> knowing SQL, sufficient? I guess you might have to pick-up some Oracle
> specific SQL statements and stuff, but besides that isn't it sufficient
> to know SQL to be able to use Oracle?
>
> Hope to hear from someone on this. Thanks.

How right Randy is and how wrong you are.

Simply stated Oracle is not JUST a database server and quite frankly I don't even think you know the meaning of the phrase "database server" that you used. You seem to have some very popular misconceptions.

1. Databases are file systems
2. SQL is SQL is SQL
3. Knowing SQL, even at the expert level, means you will be competent in Oracle.
4. All relational database products are identical.

The truth is:

1. The concepts are different
2. The architecture is different
3. The transaction models are different
4. The objects they contain are different
5. The security models are different
6. Huge amounts of other functionality you seem totally unaware of.

Here are just a few examples of Oracle functionality:

1. interMedia
2. Context
3. UltraSearch
4. Spatial
5. Consumer Groups
6. Partitioning
7. DataGuard
8. Real Application Clusters
9. GRID
10. Virtual Private Database
11. Advanced Queuing
12. Streams
13. Expression Filtering
14. Rules Management
15. Evaluation Contexts
16. Job Scheduling
17. Resource Plans
18. XML

Which of the above do you expect you will be competent in based on a knowledge of SQL? And the above list is a light-year from being complete.

If you don't understand Oracle's multiversion consistency model the truth is you aren't even competent to do an insert statement.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
Relational theory is not something that is simply a nice-to-have.
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)

Received on Thu May 26 2005 - 17:18:45 CDT