Re: Are Oracle GUIs causing a decline in DBA salaries?

Following up on Karsten Farrell, 30 Apr 2003:

>
> Yeah, and my hearing is getting worse ... and I need my bifocals to read
> this. Of course, I have to use the large icons on the toolbar of my
> newsreader.

and you want a GUI?????
:D

>
> Well, I kinda got the feeling that everyone was.

Nope. What was said is that GUI DBA tools do NOT necessarily help people be more productive. That is completely different from saying users of said tools are lesser beings, no?

> Actually, yes. As a matter of fact, they did say that in the ads. But
> you know what? I agree with them.

Why?

> Uh, no, I'm not trying to tell you that. The command, once it reaches
> Oracle, doesn't run any faster or slower based on what tool I used on
> the client side. But a GUI tool does help me - admittedly, only
> sometimes - diagnose a problem quicker or see what needs to be fixed
> more easily.

"sometimes" is the word. Ergo, it's far from essential and anyone sustaining that it is essential is trying to snow me.

>
> Just a couple of examples -- there's the nice graphic in OEM that shows
> the percent of tablespaces used (much easier to get a quick overview
> than looking at the actual numbers in a command-line query against the
> data dictionary).

I'm not interested in "overviews" when I'm managing space. It either tells me the RATE OF CHANGE and if it is exceeding what my capacity is or it is useless and just a gimmick to give me a "warm pants feeling" that my "monitor" looks good...

> There are all those graphs in the OEM Performance Pack
> that give, in my opinion, a clearer picture of the "health" of various
> portions of the database.
>

No they don't. They are as confusing and mixed up and just plain inneffective as they can get. They are a throwback to the bad days of "ratios". Totally useless for anything nowadays.

> Assistant. Much quicker for me to jump into tnsnames.ora with vi and
> copy/paste.

Quite frankly, the Net Assistant is one that I use ALL the time! The syntax and inter-version differences of tnsnames.ora are complex enough that I'd prefer to have a tool that does all that rubbish for me.

> And I don't know how anyone ever used the Oracle Terminal
> GUI to setup vt220 character-mode terminal emulators.
>

I can't talk about the GUI, but the original oraterm product was quite easy to use (character mode) and it worked quite well. Of course, it helped if someone setting up a VT220 actually KNEW what the codes were. But that was a given back when VT220s were relevant.

-- 
Cheers
Nuno Souto
wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam