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Re: NESTED RELATIONAL DATABASES

From: Joe <joe_at_bftsi0.UUCP>
Date: 1997/10/05
Message-ID: <618j0s$3i3$1@owl.slip.net>#1/1

kfein_at_primenet.com (KE Fein) writes:

> Joe We are Borg Foster wrote:
> [snip]
> >Good thing we're staying away from Oracle, then! Did this slip by
> >Larry while he was trying to get the Java terminal :-) ball rolling?
> >At least I won't have to worry about having to fire anybody for using
> >an object-collection "field"...
> >
> [snip]
> Good thing Oracle implemented object features as an option you can choose
> not to install. Why the Oracle bashing?

If the above is not exactly what you posted, please accept my apologies. There's this black fuzzball who wants to play with the keyboard too...

Thank you for the information about optional 0NF features! However, if I want an OODBMS, I'll use an OODBMS, not Frankenstein's monster.

My attitude towards Oracle is as a result of both first-hand experience and second-hand anecdotes. My first exposure to Oracle was a project for the Federal Eemergency Management Agency to coordinate the resonse to the earthquake in Northridge, California. I was brought in about a year after flunking out of UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering. (But try to determine that from articles in my DejaNews <http://www.dejanews.com> author profile in which I don't mention specifically mention it!) We were attempting to load Oracle onto a Windows NT 3.1 Server system using name brand hardware. Everything worked perfectly except Oracle. Oracle recommended some consultants, who we then contacted and brought on board. Two weeks later, they were still scratching their heads bald and our Oracle database was stillborn. Meanwhile, the egg on our faces was accumulating exponentially. We reached a decision, and half an hour after one of us came back from a quick road trip, SQL Server was up and running, and we were well on our way towards loading our data from the motley collection of Access databases that had accumulated during those two weeks. I realize that there are an awful lot of cretins and con artists in the consulting biz, but there are now at least a half dozen people now scattered around America, Latin America, Europe, and Australia swapping war stories, including this one. Oracle may be more flexible and have more configuration and performance tuning options, but can we make it so much faster than competing products that it would compensate for fourteen continuous days of downtime in an mission-critical application we promised we could run 24-7-365.24 for the duration of the Northridge disaster response? Innocent people remained HOMELESS for longer than was absolutely necessary because we thought we were playing it SAFE! I'm sorry, allow me a minute to calm down. Even years later, I'm still quick to anger over the debacle.

I am also suspicious of Oracle's showings in the TP benchmarks. It seems to me that the configuration options commonly selected for these tests sacrifice data integrity and availability at the altar of artificially enhanced transactions/sec ratings. Rigging a Nitrous system to your car's fuel system can greatly enhance your maximum speed, but where are you when your engine block turns to hot slag as a result. Yes, I know that argument by analogy is fraud at its heart, but I tend to include the downtime in which the transactions/sec count is exactly zero when choosing my tools, and my first Oracle experience was a nightmare. The only way it could have been worse was if people were actually injured or killed as a direct result of our abject failure to avoid choosing Oracle.

As for secondhand experience, friends and colleagues who have managed to get more recent Oracle versions up and running complain of downtime, needless configuration hassles, unexpected query results, and other such lovelies. They show up for lunch meetings and Frisbee Golf outings with suspicious bald patches on their scalps. The Ringworld is unstable, and so is Oracle, unless and until all the manuals have been memorized and mind melds with the Oracle development staff have been established.

Remember, you asked.

ATTENTION LARRY ELLISON: I am prepared to testify regarding the preceding events. Your lawyers can doubtlessly crush me like a cockroach, but you cannot crush every witness to the preceding events unless you intend to extradite across international borders. Fuck you, and go to Hell!

-- 
Joe Foster <mailto:joe*AT*bftsi0.gate.net> Yes Colin, I *still* work for BFTSI!
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above        They're   coming  to
because  my cats have  apparently  learned to type.        take CJ3 away, ha ha!
Received on Sun Oct 05 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT

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