Re: Learn Oracle in three days?

Pablo Sanchez wrote:

> "Michael Wilkinson" <mwilkinson_jr_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:5d7c58cb.0205121625.3acf40c3_at_posting.google.com...
> > Greetings - masters of table extents, and other things arcane. This
> > neophyte has a ludicrous question for you: Is it possible for me to
> > learn oracle in three days or less? I've worked with other RDBMS in
> > the past, and know the difference between a fragment and a chunk,
> but
> > my first pass through the oracle documentation had convinced me that
> I
> > might have just entered into seventh circle of hell.
>
> Like all things, it depends. <g>
>
> If your background is hard core databases (theory and practical) and
> you have a set of DBA student guides from Oracle, I think in three
> days you can make a lot of headway. Will you understand some of the
> nuances? Nah, but is it critical? Not initially.
>
> If you're wondering what I believe a hard core database person to
> know, here are some sample questions:
>
> * Do you understand the concept of dense versus non-dense indexes?
> * Do you understand why databases have a 'data' portion and a 'log'
> portion?
> * Do you understand why the need for checkpointing?
> * Do you understand what happens on a DBMS failure and its recovery
> from the log perspective?
> * Do you know how piggybacking off of an index can help you? (also
> known as a 'covered query')
> * Do you know the I/O characteristics of the:
> - log
> - data
>
> (these kinda just came quickly)
>
> As for extents, segments and tablespaces, I find these to be one of
> the nice things about Oracle. Perhaps you were being flippant but to
> be able to micro-manage where my data resides on disk and on which
> disks is extremely important to me for performance reasons.
>
> If the above is a bit for you, I'd take a DBA class ASAP. Some
> mangler really did a poor job scheduling the launch of the app.
>
> Have fun!
> --
> Pablo Sanchez, High-Performance Database Engineering
> mailto:pablo_at_hpdbe.com
> http://www.hpdbe.com
> Available for short-term and long-term contracts

I was doing pretty well until I got to "covered query" or "piggybacking". Not only have I not heard these phrases but they are not findable at tahiti.oracle.com, technet.oracle.com, etc.

Could you please explain to what you refer.

Thanks,

Daniel Morgan Received on Mon May 13 2002 - 11:34:10 CDT