Re: the importance of Pro/C

Comments embedded

On Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:53:06 -0500, Michael Austin <maustin_at_firstdbasource.com> wrote:

>but, if you, as a dba support those databases the application developers
>access, it is not a bad idea to be able to understand and read the code
>for yourself.
>

Pro*C is a so-called Host Language Interface, or a preprocessor. There is little special knowledge required to understand Pro*C.

Apart from that: Pro*C is little used. Oracle products internally use OCI.
Most third party developers either use a Microsux interface (ODBC, OLE, Ado, .NET) or -God forbid- jdbc, without paying any attention to how their code interacts with the database. This means they usually don't use PrepareStatement
>True DBAs are really Systems, Storage, Network, Application, Data and
>Business Administrators/analyst. :) If you have ever worked for any
>company of any size, if there is ANYTHING wrong in the environment, the
>DBA always gets the first call.
>
This is caused by the two I's on the side of the developer: Ignorance and Incompetency. One usually blames the part one knows nothing about.

>I believe that if you are a DBA you should be able to know enough of the
>other disciplines to be able to troubleshoot any systemic problem and
>that includes the programmer.
>

I don't think so. Most analysis can be executed by reading raw trace files.
Whatever front-end the developer is using doesn't matter. What doe matter is

- not using bind variables
- not using array fetches
- committing inside a loop

All of which can be determined from a raw trace file.
>
>Michael.

My 2 eurocents

-- 
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA