Re: Oracle Internals

eho_at_freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () wrote:
>I came from the MF IBM background and started to support the Oracle
>systems. I found out there are a lot of things (like ORA600 messages,
>data and control file header information etc.) are not being documented.
>To me, that's why I prefer to work on IBM products because you can learn
>more about IBM products. Any chance of Oracle to document more for our
>benefits???

We don't publish "logic" or internals manuals a' la' IBM but then IBM is doing less and less of that these days as well. If all you have done so far is to read the manuals shipped with the products then you haven't exhausted what's available. I believe that our support organization in particular maintains a stash of online or fax-back documents discussing more arcane aspects of Oracle products. Specific product line (platform) groups within Oracle sometimes produce white papers or other collateral that explore products' inner workings. Finally, Oracle Open World and similar events include sessions given by product developers that often dip below the surface so to speak.

From a philosophical standpoint I think we'd like to give people enough information to install and use our products effectively without leading them into the trap of dependency on facilities that are considered "internal" and -- most importantly -- changeable from release to release. I suspect MVS (and VM etc.) could have evolved much more rapidly had IBM been able to draw a sharper line between published and internal facilities back in the OS/360 days.

/b

--
Bill Manry - Mainframe & Integration Technologies - Oracle Corp. USA
The above statements and opinions are my own and do not
necessarily represent those of Oracle Corporation.