Re: [Newbie] Oracle

On Thu, 26 May 2005 14:25:43 -0700, DJP interested us by writing:

> 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.

Somewhat similar to automotives: you can be a city driver, a race car driver, a mechanic, an engine performance engineer, etc. etc. ad nauseum

With Oracle, you can be: a data entry clerk; an Excel or Access aware super user (who will never understand why things don't work the same in Oracle as in Access); a 'SQL' programmer; an typical Oracle app programmer; a good Oracle app programer; a typical DBA; an Oracle DBA; a JOAT. And that's not acknowledging that the only areas of the software industry in which Oracle does not compete are 'office suites' and 'computer games'. They seem to have something in, or around, every other area of this industry. (Personally I consider a RDBMS equivalent to an operating system. Oracle even had an OS-less RDBMS implementation for a while ... the network applicance stripped the external OS to a minimum config.)

It's a bit of an uphill climb ... I've been around the Oracle world since 1984 and am, IMO, barely competent. The worst part is, that does not say much for many 'competent DBAs' I've run across.

You might also ask, if it's so simple, why are there over 55,000 pages of documentation online at http://docs.oracle.com for the database alone? (another est. 55,000 for the app server, est. 75,000 for the apps, and a bunch for the tools) ... dropping that documentation effort would surely be a significant cost savings, right??? (wrong!!!)

So I'd suggest you start reading. It's a bit of an uphill climb ... I've been around the Oracle world since 1984 and am, IMO, barely competent - which does not say much for many 'competent DBAs' Ive run across.

Good current books:

• "Oracle Essentials" (pub. by O'Reilly ... the Nutshell people)
• Thomas Kyte's "Effective ORacle by Design"
• the supplied "Oracle [tech set] Concepts Manual"
  • one for database, one for app server.

The Oracle Essentials actually attempts to answer your question in a mere 300-400 pages.

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com   
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