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> I laughed a bit when I read that you use Oracle and don't have the budget for more people. Why? Because you believe the former causes the latter? There are

by mmt 8y ago

> I laughed a bit when I read that you use Oracle and don't have the budget for more people. Why? Because you believe the former causes the latter? There are many valid criticisms to be levied against Oracle the company, enteprise software in general, and especially its pricing. However, it's important to remember that, for many businesses, it's either impractical or downright impossible to hire enough engineers to make up for to lost features of replacing Oracle with even somethig as relatively feature-dense as PostgreSQL.

JamesBarney 8y ago
I think the idea though is most companies that have such small development team usually don't have the need or expertise to take advantage of those features.
- mmt 8y ago
  That idea just doesn't stand to reason, though, to be fair, if you say "most companies that" you're expressing a stereotype, which can easily fail, as it does here, when applied to a specific case. I personally know a "such a small development team" (i.e. a single person) who certainly has the expertise, by virtue of having trained to become an Oracle DBA after a fairly extensive career as a software engineer. As for need, I'm no expert on Oracle's unique features, but the GP specifically mentioned "reverse-engineering stored procedures", which implies at least previous developers thought there was a need to use an arguably advanced database feature. In fact, even just having a substantial quantity of stored procedures written in PL/SQL, perhaps at a time when that company had (or contracted out to) a larger development team may make it prohibitive to switch to any other language. Reliably implementing business logic as-is is a pretty big feature.
stickfigure 8y ago
for many businesses, it's either impractical or downright impossible to [...] make up for [...] features of replacing Oracle I would have granted you this if you'd said "for a few specialized businesses", but you're waaay overselling it. 99.9% of businesses using Oracle would do just fine with a "lesser database".
- mmt 8y ago
  > would do just fine with a "lesser database" And I would grant you that if you could make the credible argument that a "lesser" [1] database could be a suitable replacement on a drop-in basis, without significant engineering effort. As I pointed out in a downthread comment, a very useful feature is that existing stored procedure that encode business logic already work. Are you really saying that only 0.1% of business database users fall into even that category? My second-hand (DBA I know) experience contradicts this, but if you have a better source, I'm certainly interested. [1] I don't actually intend to make any overall value judgment, since my point isn't that Oracle has feature/performance superiority over any other database. Instead, I'm saying that it has specific features that the business needed at the time it was chosen that may not be offered by a different one.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    Of course once you already have application an built around a platform, the switching costs can be high. See also: IE6. No argument from me there. But Oracle doesn't sell their product with the pitch "hahaha too bad you're stuck with us". They try to convince the next generation of ill-informed technology leaders that it would be a mistake to choose anything else. I've heard the pitch, and by the third time I heard "invest in Oracle RAC" I was consciously suppressing the urge to punch the salesman. I'm saying that 99.9% of Oracle customers would have been significantly better off from a cost, flexibility, and support perspective going with an alternative like Postgres when they started building their product. And most of the remaining 0.1% would have been better off with MSSQL.
    - mmt 8y ago
      > I'm saying that 99.9% of Oracle customers would have been significantly better off from a cost, flexibility, and support perspective going with an alternative like Postgres when they started. Although I agree that some huge proportion [1] of businesses today would do very well to seriously consider Postgres as the first option before even looking at Oracle, I don't recall this being true 17 [2] or even 10 years ago. Remember, we're likely talking about non-tech businesses here, ones where they're sustaining operations with a single developer. You mention "ill-informed technology leaders" but it's hard to imagine there are any technology leaders actually involved on the buyer's side. I don't think it's helpful to look back at such a decision through the lens of today's technologies and the kind of talent/expertise that is, today, available to a business whose core competency is tech. I'm no fan of "enterprise" anything, so don't mistake my critique as cheerleading Oracle. I just feel the context of technology decisions is paramount. It also seems especially germane to the overall thread topic, which is whether a generalist can possibly have enough depth in key areas to be considered competent enough in them. [1] your repeatedly asserted claim of 99.9% is extraordinary, requiring extraordinary evidence. [2] Oracle 9i was released in 2001. EnterpriseDB wasn't founded until 2004.
Illniyar 8y ago
Errr... the cost value of Oracle database is skewed. It simply costs sooo much it's impractical for most companies to use, especially if they cannot afford more then 1 decent engineer. We are talking about 10000s of dollars per CORE (not even per cpu). Also for that matter, I've never met a company that uses oracle features that aren't available in Postgres or can be made with MySQL and another service such as Redis or ElasticSearch. It also impractical to maintain without a dedicated DBA. Which usually means that if a company uses OracleDB they are loaded with money.
- mmt 8y ago
  > We are talking about 10000s of dollars per CORE (not even per cpu). Amortized over what period of time, though? Is that today's price, or 17 years ago? Is that list price or the price an actual small user would pay? > I've never met a company that uses oracle features that aren't available in Postgres I'm sure you'r in the majority here on HN, but that's merely selection bias. Also, it's true today, but was it true 17 years ago, circa Oracle 9i? > can be made with Businesses whose core competency isn't tech and/or who aren't located in a tech hub aren't likely even to consider the "make" option. > It also impractical to maintain without a dedicated DBA. That's simply false, as the Oracle DBA I know routinely contraced out to companies as a temporary, non-dedicated DBA. I suspect there's another growth/tech-centric bias at work in this assertion. All that said, I'm not a proponent of Oracle (or enterprise software in general), but I am a proponent of fact-based discussions.
  - anarazel 8y ago
    > > I've never met a company that uses oracle features that aren't available in Postgres > I'm sure you'r in the majority here on HN, but that's merely selection bias. Also, it's true today, but was it true 17 years ago, circa Oracle 9i? As somebody working on PostgreSQL full time, I very much agree on that. Neither today nor back in the 9i days has PostgreSQL implemented everything Oracle provides. Nor the reverse, for that matter. And I'm not just talking about features nobody uses. > > It also impractical to maintain without a dedicated DBA. > That's simply false, as the Oracle DBA I know routinely contraced out to companies as a temporary, non-dedicated DBA. I do think it's easier to operate several databases, including PG, without a dedicated DBA in comparison to Oracle. Obviously it's entirely possible for both.

by mmt 8y ago

JamesBarney 8y ago

I think the idea though is most companies that have such small development team usually don't have the need or expertise to take advantage of those features.

mmt 8y ago
That idea just doesn't stand to reason, though, to be fair, if you say "most companies that" you're expressing a stereotype, which can easily fail, as it does here, when applied to a specific case. I personally know a "such a small development team" (i.e. a single person) who certainly has the expertise, by virtue of having trained to become an Oracle DBA after a fairly extensive career as a software engineer. As for need, I'm no expert on Oracle's unique features, but the GP specifically mentioned "reverse-engineering stored procedures", which implies at least previous developers thought there was a need to use an arguably advanced database feature. In fact, even just having a substantial quantity of stored procedures written in PL/SQL, perhaps at a time when that company had (or contracted out to) a larger development team may make it prohibitive to switch to any other language. Reliably implementing business logic as-is is a pretty big feature.

stickfigure 8y ago

for many businesses, it's either impractical or downright impossible to [...] make up for [...] features of replacing Oracle I would have granted you this if you'd said "for a few specialized businesses", but you're waaay overselling it. 99.9% of businesses using Oracle would do just fine with a "lesser database".

mmt 8y ago
> would do just fine with a "lesser database" And I would grant you that if you could make the credible argument that a "lesser" [1] database could be a suitable replacement on a drop-in basis, without significant engineering effort. As I pointed out in a downthread comment, a very useful feature is that existing stored procedure that encode business logic already work. Are you really saying that only 0.1% of business database users fall into even that category? My second-hand (DBA I know) experience contradicts this, but if you have a better source, I'm certainly interested. [1] I don't actually intend to make any overall value judgment, since my point isn't that Oracle has feature/performance superiority over any other database. Instead, I'm saying that it has specific features that the business needed at the time it was chosen that may not be offered by a different one.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  Of course once you already have application an built around a platform, the switching costs can be high. See also: IE6. No argument from me there. But Oracle doesn't sell their product with the pitch "hahaha too bad you're stuck with us". They try to convince the next generation of ill-informed technology leaders that it would be a mistake to choose anything else. I've heard the pitch, and by the third time I heard "invest in Oracle RAC" I was consciously suppressing the urge to punch the salesman. I'm saying that 99.9% of Oracle customers would have been significantly better off from a cost, flexibility, and support perspective going with an alternative like Postgres when they started building their product. And most of the remaining 0.1% would have been better off with MSSQL.
  - mmt 8y ago
    > I'm saying that 99.9% of Oracle customers would have been significantly better off from a cost, flexibility, and support perspective going with an alternative like Postgres when they started. Although I agree that some huge proportion [1] of businesses today would do very well to seriously consider Postgres as the first option before even looking at Oracle, I don't recall this being true 17 [2] or even 10 years ago. Remember, we're likely talking about non-tech businesses here, ones where they're sustaining operations with a single developer. You mention "ill-informed technology leaders" but it's hard to imagine there are any technology leaders actually involved on the buyer's side. I don't think it's helpful to look back at such a decision through the lens of today's technologies and the kind of talent/expertise that is, today, available to a business whose core competency is tech. I'm no fan of "enterprise" anything, so don't mistake my critique as cheerleading Oracle. I just feel the context of technology decisions is paramount. It also seems especially germane to the overall thread topic, which is whether a generalist can possibly have enough depth in key areas to be considered competent enough in them. [1] your repeatedly asserted claim of 99.9% is extraordinary, requiring extraordinary evidence. [2] Oracle 9i was released in 2001. EnterpriseDB wasn't founded until 2004.

Illniyar 8y ago

Errr... the cost value of Oracle database is skewed. It simply costs sooo much it's impractical for most companies to use, especially if they cannot afford more then 1 decent engineer. We are talking about 10000s of dollars per CORE (not even per cpu). Also for that matter, I've never met a company that uses oracle features that aren't available in Postgres or can be made with MySQL and another service such as Redis or ElasticSearch. It also impractical to maintain without a dedicated DBA. Which usually means that if a company uses OracleDB they are loaded with money.

mmt 8y ago
> We are talking about 10000s of dollars per CORE (not even per cpu). Amortized over what period of time, though? Is that today's price, or 17 years ago? Is that list price or the price an actual small user would pay? > I've never met a company that uses oracle features that aren't available in Postgres I'm sure you'r in the majority here on HN, but that's merely selection bias. Also, it's true today, but was it true 17 years ago, circa Oracle 9i? > can be made with Businesses whose core competency isn't tech and/or who aren't located in a tech hub aren't likely even to consider the "make" option. > It also impractical to maintain without a dedicated DBA. That's simply false, as the Oracle DBA I know routinely contraced out to companies as a temporary, non-dedicated DBA. I suspect there's another growth/tech-centric bias at work in this assertion. All that said, I'm not a proponent of Oracle (or enterprise software in general), but I am a proponent of fact-based discussions.
- anarazel 8y ago
  > > I've never met a company that uses oracle features that aren't available in Postgres > I'm sure you'r in the majority here on HN, but that's merely selection bias. Also, it's true today, but was it true 17 years ago, circa Oracle 9i? As somebody working on PostgreSQL full time, I very much agree on that. Neither today nor back in the 9i days has PostgreSQL implemented everything Oracle provides. Nor the reverse, for that matter. And I'm not just talking about features nobody uses. > > It also impractical to maintain without a dedicated DBA. > That's simply false, as the Oracle DBA I know routinely contraced out to companies as a temporary, non-dedicated DBA. I do think it's easier to operate several databases, including PG, without a dedicated DBA in comparison to Oracle. Obviously it's entirely possible for both.