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I don't understand why anyone buys Oracle. Every Oracle product I used over the last 15 years has been awful.

by buyucu 1y ago

jackvalentine 1y ago
Nobody bought Oracle here - they bought Cerner which was gobbled up in 2022.
- chickenzzzzu 1y ago
  Disclaimer: I am not inciting violence. This is polemic humor for entertainment purposes only. Void where prohibited. Theory: A society collectivey buys Oracle when they no longer view armed revolution as acceptable.
- Scoundreller 1y ago
  Sorta, Cerner uses an Oracle backend
selivanovp 1y ago
Because Oracle comes to any country/industry with trucks of money to corrupt officials and lobby their adoption. And after a few years you find yourself in a situation when you already paid for Oracle so much, integrated it so deeply, so switching to any alternative is a massive pain and in most cases it’s safer and easier to keep paying Oracle.
- goodpoint 1y ago
  They also corrupt management in the companies buying their products. Same with two other very big software vendor.
- netdevphoenix 1y ago
  I believe this is how they grew and how they remain big. While smaller companies aim for managers, Oracle targets CTOs and CEOs, takes them out for expensive dinners and promises them the world. Then, they legacy handcuffed them forever. And virtually no one chooses to invest crazy amounts of money on migrating or even starting a new codebase when your company lifeblood has been poured into the Faustian Oracle machinery.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    Are managers really not doing background checks about company behaviour before signing a contract?
    - netdevphoenix 1y ago
      The ones targeted by Oracle salespeople don't. And when they do, it's too late. And most just hope things "will work out". I was third party witness to one of these transformations and I correctly predicted the chaos, uncertainty and sense of powerlessness that it would cause
gonzo41 1y ago
It's legacy lock in. You can't just switch stuff. it's incredibly hard to move logic out of store procedures from on DB to another. Its the same reason why the US government runs on Cobol. People don't think about the strategic implication of the tech they choose and how it may come back to limit them in the future.
- 8fingerlouie 1y ago
  Most Oracle "shops" i know have used it for decades. When they started using it, there weren't many options, so Oracle was what was used. COBOL is in the same category. When invented, it was the absolute easiest programming language to learn and use, so of course it gained popularity. It then turned out to be rather good at what it did, along with running on hardware that "never fails", so most places didn't even think about replacing it until sometime in the 90s. Also keep in mind that the reason companies are migrating away from COBOL is not due to the language as much as due to young people not taking an interest in COBOL and Mainframes, making it hard to recruit new talent. Even then, a migration away from a typical mainframe is a huge task. In most cases you're talking 50-60 years of "legacy" (still running, still working, still updated) code, and replacing a system that has evolved for half a century is not an easy undertaking, at least not if you plan on getting it 100% right the first time.
  - pastage 1y ago
    > due to young people not taking an interest in COBOL and Mainframes Having only fleeting professional experience with COBOL during a summer my view of it is that it is a mix of dataanalyst job and programming. Where the programming is horrible and the report making is ok though archaic. As long as you modify processes already available it is not so bad, but the developer experience was horrible. With all that said I actually liked ideas in COBOL but it is an extremely niche language that does not serve you at all in the real world.
    - decimalenough 1y ago
      The "real world" of airline reservations, the world's financial infrastructure and basically anything involving hardcore real data processing runs on COBOL. But yeah, if you're looking to code up a progressive web app or next blockbuster MMORPG, I wouldn't recommend COBOL.
vlovich123 1y ago
I know they get a lot of hate but I personally used Oracle’s cloud and it seemed like a decent piece of infrastructure with really solid engineering team behind it. They had their share of problems (and their first line of support is really really bad and not well suited to handle real issues) but not really any different from any other similar products.
jeroenhd 1y ago
Oracle offers everything. Databases, web frameworks, programming languages, CRMs, cloud management tools, auto scaling clusters, identity management, BI, document search, email servers, colocation, mainframes, calendar sync. You name it, they've got it. Oracle has products ready to go to run an entire country if it needs to. Sure, Postgres beats OracleDB, but Postgres doesn't integrate as well with Oracle Fusion and you need to migrate the code yourself. They're like SAP: they're big enough that you can make a career just out of configuring their software packages and make good money while doing so. It's expensive and certainly not the best, but it's reasonably stable and has a huge company backing it. Oracle won't disappear any time soon and they're not as likely as Google or Microsoft to shut down their services within a few years notice. In some countries, Oracle is also very good at doing what Google and Microsoft are doing to students. The Brazilian programmers I've spoken to specifically learned OracleDB when they were taught relational databases. They learned to program in Java, and I'm sure Oracle also sponsored other parts of the professional tooling they got to use for free. Microsoft, on the other hand, didn't seem to generous towards their educational facility (no free MS tooling for their schools like they offer over here). If all you know is Photoshop/Windows/Maya/OracleDB/iOS, you're going to look for jobs where you can use Photoshop/Windows/Maya/OracleDB/iOS, and employers looking for cheap juniors will need to offer Photoshop/Windows/Maya/OracleDB/iOS to make the best use of them.
- arresin 1y ago
  Damn I’m wondering now if that’s why we studied Java as our first programming language in Australia at uni for CS. Oracle have a relatively big presence here and there’s a comfortable “mates” system that runs the Australia (soft bribery).
  - chickenzzzzu 1y ago
    Java has been a staple of university courses since before Oracle bought Sun. I guess I am getting old now, if the kids all want to program in Python and Javascript for 4 years...
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    As much as I hate Oracle, there are huge advantages to Java. Java is strongly typed, free, and runs damn near anywhere. It's pretty much the go-to language when people think about OOP and for good reason. It has some excellent open source IDE support and it's widely used in the industry. With the current OpenJDK setup, it's also free of Oracle's licensing issues. It runs fast and can support most algorithms you'll probably ever study, without the manual memory management troubles of something like C++. I was taught C# in uni for very similar reasons except the entire uni ran on Windows and the Microsoft platform, which made doing assignments on Linux rather inconvenient. With the status of dotnet core, I'd say Java finally has a good competitor when it comes to teaching OOP languages.
ManBeardPc 1y ago
I made a similar experience. The database just stopped working one day, triggered by a normal restart without any updates or patches. Fixed the configuration, tested it, restarted multiple times, everything works. After a week it was not working again, without me being able to fix it except doing a fresh reinstall on a clean VM. Luckily more and more customers switched to Postgres and I no longer have to deal with it.

I don't understand why anyone buys Oracle. Every Oracle product I used over the last 15 years has been awful.

by buyucu 1y ago

I don't understand why anyone buys Oracle. Every Oracle product I used over the last 15 years has been awful.

jackvalentine 1y ago

Nobody bought Oracle here - they bought Cerner which was gobbled up in 2022.

chickenzzzzu 1y ago
Disclaimer: I am not inciting violence. This is polemic humor for entertainment purposes only. Void where prohibited. Theory: A society collectivey buys Oracle when they no longer view armed revolution as acceptable.
Scoundreller 1y ago
Sorta, Cerner uses an Oracle backend

selivanovp 1y ago

Because Oracle comes to any country/industry with trucks of money to corrupt officials and lobby their adoption. And after a few years you find yourself in a situation when you already paid for Oracle so much, integrated it so deeply, so switching to any alternative is a massive pain and in most cases it’s safer and easier to keep paying Oracle.

goodpoint 1y ago
They also corrupt management in the companies buying their products. Same with two other very big software vendor.
netdevphoenix 1y ago
I believe this is how they grew and how they remain big. While smaller companies aim for managers, Oracle targets CTOs and CEOs, takes them out for expensive dinners and promises them the world. Then, they legacy handcuffed them forever. And virtually no one chooses to invest crazy amounts of money on migrating or even starting a new codebase when your company lifeblood has been poured into the Faustian Oracle machinery.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  Are managers really not doing background checks about company behaviour before signing a contract?
  - netdevphoenix 1y ago
    The ones targeted by Oracle salespeople don't. And when they do, it's too late. And most just hope things "will work out". I was third party witness to one of these transformations and I correctly predicted the chaos, uncertainty and sense of powerlessness that it would cause

gonzo41 1y ago

It's legacy lock in. You can't just switch stuff. it's incredibly hard to move logic out of store procedures from on DB to another. Its the same reason why the US government runs on Cobol. People don't think about the strategic implication of the tech they choose and how it may come back to limit them in the future.

8fingerlouie 1y ago
Most Oracle "shops" i know have used it for decades. When they started using it, there weren't many options, so Oracle was what was used. COBOL is in the same category. When invented, it was the absolute easiest programming language to learn and use, so of course it gained popularity. It then turned out to be rather good at what it did, along with running on hardware that "never fails", so most places didn't even think about replacing it until sometime in the 90s. Also keep in mind that the reason companies are migrating away from COBOL is not due to the language as much as due to young people not taking an interest in COBOL and Mainframes, making it hard to recruit new talent. Even then, a migration away from a typical mainframe is a huge task. In most cases you're talking 50-60 years of "legacy" (still running, still working, still updated) code, and replacing a system that has evolved for half a century is not an easy undertaking, at least not if you plan on getting it 100% right the first time.
- pastage 1y ago
  > due to young people not taking an interest in COBOL and Mainframes Having only fleeting professional experience with COBOL during a summer my view of it is that it is a mix of dataanalyst job and programming. Where the programming is horrible and the report making is ok though archaic. As long as you modify processes already available it is not so bad, but the developer experience was horrible. With all that said I actually liked ideas in COBOL but it is an extremely niche language that does not serve you at all in the real world.
  - decimalenough 1y ago
    The "real world" of airline reservations, the world's financial infrastructure and basically anything involving hardcore real data processing runs on COBOL. But yeah, if you're looking to code up a progressive web app or next blockbuster MMORPG, I wouldn't recommend COBOL.

vlovich123 1y ago

I know they get a lot of hate but I personally used Oracle’s cloud and it seemed like a decent piece of infrastructure with really solid engineering team behind it. They had their share of problems (and their first line of support is really really bad and not well suited to handle real issues) but not really any different from any other similar products.

jeroenhd 1y ago

Oracle offers everything. Databases, web frameworks, programming languages, CRMs, cloud management tools, auto scaling clusters, identity management, BI, document search, email servers, colocation, mainframes, calendar sync. You name it, they've got it. Oracle has products ready to go to run an entire country if it needs to. Sure, Postgres beats OracleDB, but Postgres doesn't integrate as well with Oracle Fusion and you need to migrate the code yourself. They're like SAP: they're big enough that you can make a career just out of configuring their software packages and make good money while doing so. It's expensive and certainly not the best, but it's reasonably stable and has a huge company backing it. Oracle won't disappear any time soon and they're not as likely as Google or Microsoft to shut down their services within a few years notice. In some countries, Oracle is also very good at doing what Google and Microsoft are doing to students. The Brazilian programmers I've spoken to specifically learned OracleDB when they were taught relational databases. They learned to program in Java, and I'm sure Oracle also sponsored other parts of the professional tooling they got to use for free. Microsoft, on the other hand, didn't seem to generous towards their educational facility (no free MS tooling for their schools like they offer over here). If all you know is Photoshop/Windows/Maya/OracleDB/iOS, you're going to look for jobs where you can use Photoshop/Windows/Maya/OracleDB/iOS, and employers looking for cheap juniors will need to offer Photoshop/Windows/Maya/OracleDB/iOS to make the best use of them.

arresin 1y ago
Damn I’m wondering now if that’s why we studied Java as our first programming language in Australia at uni for CS. Oracle have a relatively big presence here and there’s a comfortable “mates” system that runs the Australia (soft bribery).
- chickenzzzzu 1y ago
  Java has been a staple of university courses since before Oracle bought Sun. I guess I am getting old now, if the kids all want to program in Python and Javascript for 4 years...
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  As much as I hate Oracle, there are huge advantages to Java. Java is strongly typed, free, and runs damn near anywhere. It's pretty much the go-to language when people think about OOP and for good reason. It has some excellent open source IDE support and it's widely used in the industry. With the current OpenJDK setup, it's also free of Oracle's licensing issues. It runs fast and can support most algorithms you'll probably ever study, without the manual memory management troubles of something like C++. I was taught C# in uni for very similar reasons except the entire uni ran on Windows and the Microsoft platform, which made doing assignments on Linux rather inconvenient. With the status of dotnet core, I'd say Java finally has a good competitor when it comes to teaching OOP languages.

ManBeardPc 1y ago

I made a similar experience. The database just stopped working one day, triggered by a normal restart without any updates or patches. Fixed the configuration, tested it, restarted multiple times, everything works. After a week it was not working again, without me being able to fix it except doing a fresh reinstall on a clean VM. Luckily more and more customers switched to Postgres and I no longer have to deal with it.