Re: Q re command files for Oracle start/stop

"Mark D Powell" <Mark.Powell_at_eds.com> wrote in message
> >
> > I'd modify both your statements to point out that you open and close
> > databases, but you start and stop *instances*.
> >
> > ;-)
> > HJR
>
> Howard, you are correct. We should all try to be more careful with
> matching our terminology to the database we are working with since the
> same terms have different meanings with different database products.

Oh, I was only joking, really. Oracle's own documentation and courseware talks (on about the first page of the first chapter of the first DBA course, for example) of starting up a database. I always mention it as an error to students, because as Niall said, I'm a pedantic bastard at heart. Fundamentally, we *should* talk the right words, because 'starting' and 'opening' suggest (to me, at least) the difference between a transitory, virtual instance which can come and go as you please, versus a permanent, physical database which is merely read and written to by the instamce... and that's a very important concept for students to grasp in the first 30 minutes. But I'm not always as careful as I should be.

I won't even get in to the networking course, where I'm always very careful to stress that it's the instance we connect to, not the database -again, despite Oracle's own doco. (And then of course it gets even iffier when you explain that it's actually only the Listener or a Server Process you connect to.... a deep, dark hole that one can be!)

Regards
HJR Received on Thu Jan 16 2003 - 21:26:28 CST