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Re: Newbie trying to get his feet wet

From: joel garry <joel-garry_at_home.com>
Date: 22 Mar 2007 17:47:08 -0700
Message-ID: <1174610828.057509.79910@e1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>


On Mar 21, 8:45 pm, "Bill Cable" <billca..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 21, 10:37 pm, "Ana C. Dent" <anaced..._at_hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am impressed with your attitude, but not much else.
> > Don't quit your day job any time soon.
>
> Actually, it's a night job. ;-)
>
> If you could be constructive in your criticism, that might be a bit
> more helpful.
>
> --
> Bill Cable - Steelers Fan & Star Wars Collectorhttp://CreatureCantina.com <----- funny!
> c..._at_creaturecantina.com

Some more general info here: http://www.dbaoracle.net/readme-cdos.htm

Gazzag's advice is good, by the time you are good enough to be a DBA the job function will have changed. But if you are an active developer, you will by then know where the gold is. I'd add, read the Oracle Concepts Manual, interleave it with your practical learning. The Kyte books basically do that, that is why they are so good.

The problem with the core DBA and the certification is that it is geared towards corporate environments - you can google for Oracle certification and see lots of debates about whether it is worth it. The important point is that you can't just get a cert and expect to get a job (there have been scams regarding that).

On the other hand, there are some clueless (usually smaller) places that hire people who have your sort of experience plus a cert. The argument can be made that that is not so bad, at least it gets your foot in the door, but I think that what often happens is people get all sorts of weird experience, myths and superstitions and eventually have to unlearn bad habits. Some of these are even propagated by the cert path (some go as far as to say you must learn to script command lines or you just won't be a good DBA). Many environments these days are not database-centric, and the code just plain fights against Oracle (and sometimes every other db, too).

As a generality, I think it is better to come into the field through PL/SQL development. I didn't, and it hurts at times. (Of course, I did learn relational theory early on and that has sustained me well - if you haven't taken a course or seriously gone through a book, do it). PL/SQL's not going away any time soon.

jg

--
@home.com is bogus.
Star wars, yowza!  http://www.gencon.com/2007/swciv/
Received on Thu Mar 22 2007 - 19:47:08 CDT

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