Re: Oracle Designer

In article <399C396C.E85FDA3D_at_palmercs.com>,   Cliff Palmer <cliff_at_palmercs.com> wrote:
> Lesley, we have used Oracle Designer for about 4 years now and would
 recommend
> it with some caveats:
> 1 - when you re-generate physical models from logical models (i.e.
 after you add
> a relationship or entity), remove *all* the objects from the existing
 model
> beforehand - designer can do some strange things if there are things
 already in
> the physical model.
> 2 - dont try to run it in less than 128 MB of memory under NT,
 particularly if
> you have things like email notifys.
> 3 - it will be slow, you cant make it faster (and will break things if
 you try),
> so have some light reading handy.
> 4 - create the repository database as a stand-alone instance of Oracle
 and add
> about 15% to the space requirements listed in the installation guide.
 Expect
> the scripts the create the repository to fail and require Oracle's
 assistance.
> 5 - dont ever run the scripts that designer generates directly without
 checking
> them carefully. They will be wrong.
> 6 - designer, like other design tools, is not really needed for
 smaller
> applications. If you have less than 50 tables and related indices,
 just say
> "no".

If you follow all the pre-install instructions, the repository builds just fine. All the DDL I've generated also work great except for a small bug when generating the admin objects. The script to call all the others uses the full NT path which breaks if the scripts are run in any other location. I've tried to open TARs on this but Oracle consistently blows it off with one excuse or another.

I've also run into some annoying things when running generate when there are existing physical definitions. Most are avoidable once you understand how the generator works. Also, in version 6.5 (6i) they FINALLY fixed the problem with saving generating settings. Very annoying in earlier versions.

I also would use it on applications smaller than 50 tables. Unless it's a really tiny app, Designer will help correctness and growth.

I did find the versioning system in 6i to be a huge pain to use. I ended up disabling it. Maybe it will get a better user interface later.

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Before you buy. Received on Wed Aug 23 2000 - 21:25:13 CEST