Re: Tom Kyte a false idol?

Geomancer wrote:

> Umm, I'm realy confused by this Gog-like worship of Tom Kyte.
>
> To me, "Tom Kyte" is the name of a product, a figurehead for a huge
> corporate marketing machine, and it strikes me a ludicrous that a
> group of intelligent people would not be aware of this.
>
> Some folks feel that "Tom Kyte" is just another Oracle marketing tool,
> and no more real than Santa Claus.
>
> As I see it, the real credit goes to an entire staff of real DBAs (and
> the Oracle development staff) who crank-out material with his name on
> it. As a VP, he has dozens of people to produce the voluminous
> examples on his web site.
>
> One need to look no farther than his web site. During the week he
> spent at OracleWorld, hundreds of lines of answers were provided on
> his web site. No way he wrote all that at the same time he attended
> the conference.
>
> It's easy to be right when you have the resources of a multi-billion
> dollar company behind you. I was also suprised to find that Kyte is
> not "worshipped" by everyone, and there are those who say that he is
> arrogant, snitty and insulting. I've been told that he sometimes
> refers to questions as "stupid" on his asktom web site, and openly
> insults people at public appearances.
>
> Personally, I admire Steve Adams and Jonathan Lewis (and even Connor
> and HJR) far more, because they are self-made and have gained their
> reputations without the benefit of full-page ads in Oracle Magazine,
> etc.
>
> I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I like the self-made experts. .
> . .

OK.. I'll tell you a true story. I was asked to contribute a chapter about indexes to a book on which Tom was a co-author. I wrote it... Tom ripped it to shreds.

Mortified was I. And annoyed too. But everything he said had relevance, and made me re-think how to explain something. Looking back on it (and it was a *deeply* disturbing experience), I could not have written anything nearly as clear as I did without Tom's rigorous scruitny and harsh judgement to appease. And the thing is: that harsh judgement didn't come from someone who'd arrogated to himself the role of supreme arbiter of Oracle truth, but someone who'd proved he needed to be taken seriously by having years of hard experience to his credit.

Point is, you don't "self-make" yourself in this business. You get there because you learn from others. Even when the medicine has to be forced down your throat. And then you might transmogrify that experience into terms that others feel and experience and can understand, because they've been there too. And then *they* take you seriously, and if they do, others do too.

If Tom was wrong, I'd call him on it, just I would if his name was Don Burleson. The difference is that Tom would think about re-phrasing his criticism so that it was unchallengeable, whereas Don would simply threaten to sue you.

Conclusion: Tom has *intellectual* integrity. And that's good enough for me.

He admits to being wrong when he is. He doesn't claim "I am a world-leading Oracle Guru so how dare you confront me with facts!!" as some do. And when he's right, he's right with a level of insight and understanding that is deserving of merit.

You might think about that.

Regards
HJR Received on Sat Sep 13 2003 - 02:06:06 CDT