Newbie's Oracle 9i impression: it sucks

I am a MS SQL DBA of five years. Recently, I have been trying to learn Oracle 9i on Windows2000. Here is my impression.

1)Oracle is SLOW on Windows2000, FAR slower than MS SQL 2000

2)Oracle uses Java interface which, although cross platform, is slow and brings out the DOS prompt (which remind of legacy applications) everytime I try to open up a GUI.

3)Believe ir not, Oracle is unstable and unreliable on Windows2000. I had Oracle GUI crash on me TWICE already.

4)Oracle security is overdone. It has multiple layers of security on the network level to the application level. Initially, I had a hard time enterting any database, and it took me while to setup the security features.

4)Setting up a Oracle Client is a nightmare. I need to setup a listener, port, and separate account\pw for the client. Too much work.

5)The official Oracle books from the Osbourne press absolutely SUCKS. I have read 3 books on Oracle 9i from the Osbourne press and all of them were next to useless. Furthermore, there are very few non-Osbourne books on Oracle 9i that I can currently buy. This is in stark contract to MS SQL 2000 which has PLENTY of GREAT books and documentation (except the ones from OSBOURNE).

6)Oracle is too complicated. I am willing to bet most Oracle DBA\Developers never use at least 20% of Oracle's features in their entire career. It seems Oracle has a GUI for every little feature it provides, which makes it seem disorganized and a nightmare to manage. I think it has around 20 GUIs!!!!. For a database, that is ridiculous.

7)PL/SQL is overrated. So far, I have seen nothing that PL/SQL can do which T-SQL (with temporary tables and cursors) cannot do. Why would anyone want to learn a SQL language that is, again, needlessly complicated?

I am seriously considering dumping Oracle and learning DB2 instead. What do you think?

Jinsoo
MCDBA, MCSD, MCSE+I Received on Thu May 16 2002 - 10:08:09 CDT