Re: recent drivel posted by Tony Rogerson on his blog

"Brian Peasland" <dba_at_nospam.peasland.net> wrote in message news:470198ae$0$26425$88260bb3_at_free.teranews.com...
>> Search is only useful if you know the correct terminolgy to search on.
>
> Agreed, which is why your example really isn't good because the game can
> be played both ways....
>
>> Take an example, in SQL Server we have what's called 'Common Table
>> Expression'; searching for that on the oracle help does not yeild
>> anything similar in oracle yet I know there is something, so, what I need
>> is a full scrollable index of topics so I can find what I'm looking for.
>
> Now look for Shared Pool or System Global Area in Books Online...can't
> find it. SQL Server has memory structures which perform somewhat similar
> actions, but you won't find these in BOL.
>
> Or look for "blocks" in BOL. You'll come up with "Understanding and
> Avoiding Blocking", "Using BEGIN...END", "Customizing the Lock Time-out",
> deadlocking, and "Troubleshooting Locking" (at least this is what I found
> in BOL for SQL 2000). Nowhere in here is that "blocks" in Oracle-speak is
> "pages" in SQL Server-speak. A fully scrollable index of topics is not
> going to help me make that terminology transition any easier.
>
> I just don't think that this is a very good argument you have made here
> because the coin can easily be flipped.
>
>

It's of course a ridiculous example.

But what I find hilarious, is that when I try to find information in the Oracle doco on the SQL Server term in Tony's example, the Oracle's search facility managed to return me just the required information in moments. It required a very basic level of searching skills such as reducing a result set by including other key words in the search (skills my daughter mastered when she five while searching the net for Wiggles info).

However, when I used the SQL Server search facility to look for the SQL Server terminology, a syntax keyword no less (the With statement), I couldn't find it. The SQL Server search engine returned 100,000s of links, even when the "With " search included other keywords such as Command, Clause or Statement.

Now, that's funny !!

Poor Tony keeps hitting lampposts in his attempt to walk forwards ...

Cheers

Richard Received on Mon Oct 01 2007 - 21:40:03 CDT