Re: How about an Oracle debate?

"Don Burleson" <don_at_burleson.cc> wrote in message news:998d28f7.0406071159.119a369e_at_posting.google.com...
> Hello Glen,
>
> > I've never been to OOW yet, but I'd go if this event was a "go"!
>
> Yes, I'm getting lots of interest in a face-to-face debate.
>
> However, I've been informed that there may be a problem that I did not
> consider, that these names don't correspond with "real" people.
>
> It turns out that I cannot verify that Nuno Souto, Richard Foote or
> Howard J. Rogers actually exist. No resumes with verifiable details,
> no photographs of any of them.

On the other hand you did threaten the organisations 2 of them work for, and have a similar track record with others, with lawsuits. I'm not quite sure where threatening to sue people that you doubt exist comes on the scale of normal behaviour - but certainly i've never been tempted.

> It's so easy to create anonymous accounts that I guess you never
> really know who you are talking with. Heck, you don't even know
> for-sure who I am.

Well I'm certainly beginning to wonder. It occurs to me that people are assuming that you are the Don Burleson who is behind www.dba-oracle.com and therefore the full time professional who is a recognized expert in Oracle Architectures, Oracle Database Administration, Oracle Tuning, Oracle Data Warehouse services and Oracle Consulting services, on the other hand it would seem to me that professional is the last word that one would use of someone who trades threats and personal insults in public. playground bully seems rather more appropriate, though I believe other words might also have been used appropriately.

> I just got an e-mail suggesting that Howard J. Rogers is really a 14
> year-old girl, but I have no way to prove it, one way or the other. .

Well you did suggest that the insults were fun to read - but it would appear that you would be aged approximately 5 to appreciate this level of discourse. Although when words are said that shouldn't be as they have been here my 2 year old has a phrase for it "not nice, daddy". She is of course correct.

If you are the Don Burleson that I think you are then there is no need for a debate - after all you carried a link to my site back in April - that referred to a paper that has all we need. In it I suggest that where there is a common belief or popular assumption it is always wise to test the statement.

Now as it happens you got rather upset with Richard's paper that quoted you in a nice defensible manner. You said

"Note that Oracle indexes will spawn to a fourth level only in areas of the index where a massive insert has occurred, such that 99% of the index has three levels, but the index is reported as having four levels. " Don Burleson: comp.databases.oracle.server newsgroup post
dated 31st January 2003

This is eminently testable. Rather unfortunately your posting has disappeared from Google, though obviously some online archives still have it and it appears in peoples responses to you, nevertheless as of 21:50GMT you still have the article in which you claim

"Index height
The height of the index refers to the number of levels that are spawned by the index as a result in row inserts. When a large amount of rows are added to a table, Oracle may spawn additional levels of an index to accommodate the new rows. Hence, an Oracle index may have four levels, but only in those areas of the index tree where the massive inserts have occurred. Oracle indexes can support many millions of entries in three levels, and any Oracle index that has four or more levels would benefit from rebuilding. "

So a simple online discussion is possible, can you demonstrate an Oracle Index with different heights in different parts of the tree? I'll quite happily work on a demo that anyone can run that shows no difference in height with arbitrarily large inserts into a single part of the index tree.

-- 
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
http://www.niall.litchfield.dial.pipex.com