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Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.server -> Re: Outrage that OCP exams are now unproctored - Comments?
On Wed, 1 Jan 2003 22:34:15 -0000, "Niall Litchfield"
<niall.litchfield_at_dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>"Howard J. Rogers" <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
>news:_rAQ9.14176$jM5.38187_at_newsfeeds.bigpond.com...
>> Personally, if a person doesn't know how to do a block dump and interpret
>> the results properly, s/he shouldn't call himself/herself a DBA. And if
>> there's one thing you won't learn on any OCP-based Oracle training course,
>> it's how to do a block dump.
>
>Methinks that goes a little far, I'm not entirely sure (from a day to day
>DBA view point) how often one would need the information in the dump below
>(not original cause it was filched from Jonathan but it will boost that OCR
>rating!)
>
[...dump flushed...]
Guess I need to learn about dumps.
One theme I observe on these discussions is the "...if a DBA can't do x then they're not a DBA, are incompetent, wouldn't be hired etc." I would hope in reality that a person would be judged on what they can do, and what they do know, rather than failure to answer one or two pet questions.
In my case, I've been DBA'ing for more than 10 years, with Ingres, Sybase, and Oracle. Almost all of that time I've been working by myself, learning from books, courses, user groups, and newsgroups such as this. No doubt in my mind there are lots of holes in my knowledge, but I've been able to keep my databases intact and running, plus do design and dev work and whatever else has been needed, often more. My employers have all been quite happy. Nevertheless, according to a lot of the criteria expressed on this list, I'm a bum.
There are a lot of different database environments. Seems to me evaluating a prospective DBA would consist mostly of finding out about the candidates experience and attitude toward learning, and how well it would map to the demands of the position I'm offering. If they had an OCP, I'd want to know how they perceived it, i.e. aware of its shortcomings and erroneous info, that is is one of many learning tools and not a passport to anything, etc.
In short, a DBA shouldn't be judged on multiple-choice, pass/fail criteria. Good judgement is essay questions and context awareness.
Now I'll go read about block dumps in case I suddenly need to take one.
fdp
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