Re: Newbie: Overwhelmed

Here are a few pointers:

First, join your local user group. Consider taking a bunch of Oracle training or getting a mentoring consultant in for a few weeks to get you started. The normal result of trying to "do it all" is to fumble around for about a year, crash and burn, and then to hire someone to help.

Go to the Oracle conferences IOUW, OOW, ECO (the best technical conference in the Oracle world), and ODTUG (for tools usage).

I'll answer some of your questions in the text below.

--
Paul Dorsey
Dulcian, Inc.
www.dulcian.com
212 595 7223



>Instances: one Vs multiple: Pros/Cons

>how does an instance(s) differ from a database


>if you have multi instances how do you keep database changes in sync

>how easy is it to have one common Form that access applications in various

>instances?

No problem, if you only point to one at a time.  If you want to point to
more than one at once, you have to set up DB links to make the tables
visible to the app.



>etc....


>Security: at the Forms level, Database Level, or Both


What do you mean by security? All three can be appropriate depending on the
situation.  Of course, "both" is always best if your performance can handle
it.



>Edits: at the Forms level, database level, or both



I don't know what that means?



>Standards for PL/SQL, Designer, Developer



For PL/SQL get Feuersteins PL/SQL book.  It discusses not only the language
but also good style.
For Developer, you are out of luck.  I am planning to do a book on that
topic next year to fill the gap.

For Designer all the books are out of date except for A Liluschi's, which
was written on the 2.0 beta.



>Managing Change control for the above

>GUI standards that Oracle recommends

>Development Methodology using the Oracle tools



My Designer2000 handbook (with P. Koletzke) has a heavy methodological
slant. It is available wherever, our greatly expanded 2'nd edition should be
out at Open World.



>In Batch processing what is the best way to go from a text file to an


>Oracle table and then to a text file again


There are PL/SQL packages that handle that.  TEXT_IO on the client side
UTIL_FILE on the server side.



>what tools should we have to monitor/debug PL/SQL, Designer, and Developer


>Code?


SQL Navigator from Quest is a must have.



>

>Thanks

>

>Ken




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