Re: Why are people so afraid of underscore parameters ?

"Bass Chorng" <bchorng_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message news:bd9a9a76.0208230914.307e346a_at_posting.google.com...
> "Niall Litchfield" <niall.litchfield_at_dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:<3d6540d7$0$237$cc9e4d1f_at_news.dial.pipex.com>...
> >
> > Then I obviously have no brain since we do not use it. On the other hand
as
> > this parameter does not appear in a search of the Oracle Documentation
the
> > idea that the majority of sites set it to something seems unlikely. In
> > addition now that I have found it documented elsewhere I have a couple
of
> > further questions
>
> "Whether to use _trace_files_public or not" is a no brainer decision.
> Don't know why you interpreted it this way. I thought that was a
> no brainer statement.

As I say we don't use the parameter. Even knowing what it was supposed to do I would not use it for production, I suspect the fact that we can have a discussion about the merits or otherwise of this decision suggests that this is not a 'no-brainer'.

> > 2. Why are non-dba users looking at trace files on a Production system
> > anyway? That is the DBA's job.
> >
>
> First, a DBA does not just maintain production. Most DBAs maintain
> more dev and test instances than production. If you do not turn
> trace file public in dev, I don't know how you are going to allow
> developers to perform their jobs seriously.

Your original post to which I was responding said " I do not know of a production site that is not using it". Of course devs should have trace rights , arguably they should have dba rights providing the document everything they do. Never the less development s NEVER done in a production database.

> Second, don't tell me your developers never trace in production to debug
> a real time problem. "Never touching production" is just a legend.

Nope they don't. DBA's do.

> Sometimes there are data size and value issues that you can only
> debug on production. How many times have we seen that execution plans
> in Dev is entirely different than in Prod ?

That is what TEST is for. Same loads same setups. Sure you don't always get that but it is important to be clear that if your test system is small or different to live then you do not have an *entirely* valid test and things maybe different in production.

>
> Third, with Oracle Apps, lots jobs are by default turned on for tracing.
> Are you gonna give Oracle password to all analysts ?

Don't run Oracle Apps so I can't comment.

> Probably true. But I can not comprehend why underscore params increased
> from 141 to 544 across 2 major releases while normal params only
increased
> from 223 to 265 in the same period. If number speaks, I think it is
> suspicious that Oracle just shuffle parameters underground to make it
look
> more manageable to match their marketing claims.

Possibly. i actually think that 8i is a whole lot more manageable than 7.3.4 say don't you?

--
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
Audit Commission UK
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