Re: A voodoo masterpiece

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 19:25:11 -0800
Message-ID: <1099970637.926910@yasure>

Dusan Bolek wrote:

> "Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message news:<418f3437$0$19402$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au>...
>

>>http://dba-oracle.com/oracle_news/2004_11_18_jenkins.htm
>>
>>Note the crass typos. Note the fact that the news stems from about 10 days
>>in the future. Note that the World's Leading Oracle Author can't string a
>>sentence together without making it sound like Esperanto is his first
>>language. Note too that the Great Author and his sidekick think that
>>proving one's assertions is "beyond stupid".
>>
>>Why is anyone still believing anything this old dinosaur hacks out (badly)?

>
>
> I can understand arguments of both side. On the "dinosaur's" side, it
> is true that is an extremely difficult (sometimes almost impossible)
> to reproduce behaviour from production system running under heavy
> load. On the other side without solid proof with testcases, we can
> easily lost all scientific ground and deteriorate to let's say magic
> approach to a database operating (noted shaman of more than 20 books
> is saying this, so it must be true, behold beyond the power of the
> true knowledge) and it is always bad to operate any technical system
> with feelings and maybes. And especially bad is in the article showed
> approach: "everyone knows that ..., so no proof is necessary".
> I'm not sure that there is an easy solution to this.
>
> --
> Dusan Bolek
> http://www.db-support.com
>
> Email: spambin_at_seznam.cz
> Pls add "Not Guilty" to the subject, otherwise your email will face an
> unpleasant end as SPAM.

One solution is to use statistics and jobs to simulate the production environment. Nothing's perfect but I'll take a good case study over a gut instinct every time.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)

Received on Mon Nov 08 2004 - 21:25:11 CST