Re: Rename a Oracle table

From: Karsten Farrell <kfarrell_at_medimpact.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 17:23:09 GMT
Message-ID: <1uzv9.1067$Ix2.83485821@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>

Billy Verreynne wrote:
> Howard J. Rogers wrote:
>
>

>>>A person that runs to this newsgroup when he does not know how to rename
>>>a table, is FRIGGEN LAZY. Period.
>>
>>I was with you all the way until this point.
>>
>>For my sins, I used to post to the XP newsgroup.  There used to be people
>>moaning about that wonderful (?) new feature whereby half of Windows'
>>menus would disappear of their own accord to be replaced by some
>>mysterious
>>chevrons.  Would you know this feature is called 'personalised menus'??  I
>>wouldn't.  I might have searched the manuals for 'disappearing menus' or
>>'pain in the ass', but 'personalised menus'???????  Point being, we forget
>>too easily what's obvious and what's not.

>
>
> Very true. But I always try and do some research first. Butt my head against
> the brick wall. And then ask for help.
>
> If is a big difference when a person posts saying "help, how do I rename a
> table" and then describe how his searching the PL/SQL manual for renaming a
> table, failed to turned anything up.
>
> That is a honest mistake (confusing the PL/SQL manual with the SQL manual).
> It also shows that the poster tried to help himself, before posting.
>
> Some are abusing newsgroups. They run into a problem. Instead of using a
> little grey matter, they rather fire off a quick "urgent! help me!" posting
> to Usenet (often cross posting too), and then sit back twiddling thumbs,
> waiting for the magic answer.
>
> Which is why I call posters such as those lazy. Actually, I call them
> something different. But lazy will do in public.
>
> --
> Billy

Wouldn't it be nice if http://www.oracle.com had a link to their online doc set? How many novices know that they have to substitute 'tahiti' for 'www'? Then maybe we wouldn't have to point newbies to the manuals. If I were a newbie, I'd go to Oracle's home page first ... and find little other than marketing ... er, stuff.

Wouldn't it be nice if Oracle hired an Index Wizard ... someone who knew how to make an index that had every keyword I might think of to look up something? I know making an index is an art, but Oracle hasn't quite mastered it yet. (In their defense, neither have half the book publishers).

I'm like Howard, trying to find out how to get my full menus back (but mine was in WinME). I remember trying to find "virtual private database" after reading a blurb in a trade magazine ... but didn't know it was the new marketing name for fine-grained access control ... which is a rename of row-level security.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Search feature of the online manuals was a bit smarter? I searched for "rename table" in my 8i set and at the top of the list was the SQL Reference Index (okay, that might do). Then there are "Managing Schema Objects" (good possibility). Weighing in at 95% ranking are the Error Messages (don't think I'll check that) and Partititoned Tables (doesn't sound promising). Farther down the list, at 84% rank, I finally see the ALTER TABLE statement in the SQL Ref (of course, that's the place to look). But my choice of which manual to read is based on having read many of the other references already.

I can just imagine how frustrating it would be if I were just starting out in the Oracle world and trying to find what I'm looking for in the FM. In the old days, I could walk up to the bookcase where all the paper versions of the manuals were ... pull out one that looked promising and flip thru some pages. Kinda hard to do the same thing in a web browser.

Just my 42 cents worth (2 cents adjusted for inflation). Received on Tue Oct 29 2002 - 11:23:09 CST