The Spoken Nerd

The next generation of Oracle Developers - part 2

It is easy to be "too close" to things that you are familiar with, and thus become jaded and disenchanted with all of the minor frustrations one encounters over a long period of time. Frequent travellers revel in grumbling about the delayed take-off, the size of the plane seat, the annoying passenger, the slow arrival of baggage etc, at the same time losing sight of the wonder of flight. In the information technology industry, we can become similarly jaded, reduced to the cliche of "grumpy old IT folk".

Thus in this series, in my attempt to recapture the enthusiasm of youth :-), I catch up with a young woman at the very start of her IT career. Layla Massey is studying software engineering at college, and has just completed a summer internship at Oracle. In this episode, we explore whether the content in college database courses matches the demands of the real world IT profession, what part IT professional have to play when it comes to ethical computing, and somehow ended up on a discussion about The Wiggles and Tame Impala!

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

The next generation of Oracle Developers - part 1

It is easy to be "too close" to things that you are familiar with, and thus become jaded and disenchanted with all of the minor frustrations one encounters over a long period of time. Frequent travellers revel in grumbling about the delayed take-off, the size of the plane seat, the annoying passenger, the slow arrival of baggage etc, at the same time losing sight of the wonder of flight. In the information technology industry, we can become similarly jaded, reduced to the cliche of "grumpy old IT folk".

Thus in this series, in my attempt to recapture the enthusiasm of youth :-), I catch up with a young woman at the very start of her IT career. Layla Massey is studying software engineering at college, and has just completed a summer internship at Oracle. In this first episode, we chat about how she scored the internship (and the cool merch that came with it!), how her interest in IT commenced, the Oracle volunteer program, and her first experiments with social media.

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

A conversation with Jackie McIlroy

I first met Jackie McIlroy a few years back where she was an attendee at a pre-covid conference. Since then she has gone from strength to strength in the Oracle community, being a much-sought after speaker, an Oracle Ace, ODTUG committee member and chair for the Kscope APEX program. I caught up with her at the Kscope22 conference in Dallas Texas to chat about the impact of APEX and Community on her career.

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d if you have comments or questions.

Back to Basics: MVCC - Why databases are magic!

Databases are incredibly complex pieces of software, which can come as a surprise given that anyone can throw together a few lines of C code to read and write data from a file. What differentiates a database from simple file read/write is how databases handle concurrent access to the data. For many years, the feature that has set Oracle Database apart from all others is its "read consistency" implementation or Multi Version Concurrent Control (MVCC). We've all heard the mantra: readers don't block writers; writers don't block readers. In this episode we'll explore why the feature is so cool, but also see what such flexibility could also lead a developer down the wrong path to corrupted data. 

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

Back to basics: SQL Parsing - the silent database killer

Parsing is the act of preparing to execute a SQL statement on your database.  It would seem to be a necessary activity - after all, that is what databases are designed to do - execute SQL.  But the topic of parsing requires a more nuanced look, because a high transaction frequency database typically succeeds or fails based the amount of SQL parsing it does.

In this episode, I'll take you on a trip down memory lane on how slow servers used to be "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for IT practitioners, but how hardware advancements have shifted the responsibility for successful applications squarely back on the shoulders of developers. The way you handle parsing on the Oracle database could open the door to the incredible firepower of modern servers...or leave you scratching your head wondering why your CPUs are running hot but no work is getting done.

And believe it or not...if you have used a public restroom, you are well on the way to understanding how parsing relates to building scalable applications :-)

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

The Oracle Optimizer - A conversation with Nigel Bayliss - Part 4

No topic quite gets emotions rolling as much as the Oracle Query Optimizer. Thus you might expect that one of the least enviable jobs in the database world would be being the public face of the database optimizer. But since 2014, Nigel Bayliss has regularly fronted the community and shared the depth and breadth of his optimizer knowledge, whilst entertaining us with his sardonic wit on the challenges of databases and database optimizers.

In this episode, I ambush Nigel with some questions that came in from Twitter from the Oracle community. In particular, how to optimize queries that contain TABLE functions, and what is best way for developers to quickly and efficiently tackle SQL tuning.

Keep updated with the optimizer at https://blogs.oracle.com/optimizer.  If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

 

The Oracle Optimizer - A conversation with Nigel Bayliss - Part 3

No topic quite gets emotions rolling as much as the Oracle Query Optimizer. Thus you might expect that one of the least enviable jobs in the database world would be being the public face of the database optimizer. But since 2014, Nigel Bayliss has regularly fronted the community and shared the depth and breadth of his optimizer knowledge, whilst entertaining us with his sardonic wit on the challenges of databases and database optimizers.

In this episode, Nigel and I tackle the area that perhaps causes the most anxiety for database professionals when it comes to the optimizer, that is, what is going to change when upgrade. Keep updated on the optimizer at https://blogs.oracle.com/optimizer 

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

The Oracle Optimizer - A conversation with Nigel Bayliss - Part 2

No topic quite gets emotions rolling as much as the Oracle Query Optimizer. Thus you might expect that one of the least enviable jobs in the database world would be being the public face of the database optimizer. But since 2014, Nigel Bayliss has regularly fronted the community and shared the depth and breadth of his optimizer knowledge, whilst entertaining us with his sardonic wit on the challenges of databases and database optimizers.

In this episode, I get Nigel's thoughts on SQL Plan Management, the types the statistics that the optimizer needs now and what it might need in future, and whether setting statistics is a good idea. Keep updated with Nigel's thoughts on the optimizer at https://twitter.com/vldbb 

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

 

The Oracle Optimizer - A conversation with Nigel Bayliss - Part 1

No topic quite gets emotions rolling as much as the Oracle Query Optimizer. The fact that a piece of software can determine the best way to run the myriad of potential SQL statements, no matter how poorly they sometimes might be written, never ceases to amaze me. But conversely, the moment the optimizer does not meet our expectations, we're quick to throw our toys out of the pram and rain down on it with our invective.

Thus you might expect that one of the least enviable jobs in the database world would be being the public face of the database optimizer. But since 2014, Nigel Bayliss has regularly fronted the community and shared the depth and breadth of his optimizer knowledge, whilst entertaining us with his sardonic wit on the challenges of databases and database optimizers.

In this series, I catch up with Nigel to talk about the optimizer, its various features, how it has evolved over the years and what might be coming in future.

If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.

Why every DBA should learn APEX

The very name of the product - Application Express (APEX) - suggests that this is a tool solely for building applications, and thus it should belong solely in the realm of developers. But that is underselling the ability of APEX to be a perfect use case for a different IT demographic - the Database Administrator. In this episode I present my reasons for APEX is a vital part of the DBA toolkit, and how a DBA using APEX can free up their time to more efficiently manage the databases in their organisation. If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d if you have comments or questions.

Check out APEX at https://apex.oracle.com/