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Because this is Oracle we are talking about, I am not sure if you are being sarcastic. But just in case you are not, my experience with Oracle is quite the opp

Because this is Oracle we are talking about, I am not sure if you are being sarcastic. But just in case you are not, my experience with Oracle is quite the opposite of what you describe. Oracle is sold on the golf course, and they exist purely for profit. Most Oracle consultants I know (quite a few) who actually develop software using the tools, gladly admit they work with Oracle because they can charge high fees. In fact, if I asked them their opinion on this specific incident they might actually approve - given the end result is that their knowledge is safe from newcomers. All this is anecdotal of course - but this is a good talk that gives a pretty nice perspective on the whole thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=player_detailpage#t=2136s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=player_de...

bananas 13y ago
I think you just described most corporations. Despite the PR otherwise, they're all rotten to the core like this. However in this specific case, if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Vendors are generally pretty tight with documentation when it's a cut-throat sector.
- ZoFreX 13y ago
  > if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Yes, yes we would.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    w3schools? No. I wouldn't.
    - etfb 13y ago
      Yeah, w3schools is not a good example. Stack Exchange, however...
MisterBastahrd 13y ago
Doesn't help that their own website is barely Web 1.0. It's damned near impossible to find anything in their documentation unless you've already memorized all the hoops you need to jump through.
- ams6110 13y ago
  asktom.oracle.com is something of a gem within that site. The navigation isn't great but there's a lot of good "how to" questions and answers there. I found it very helpful when I was working with Oracle. Also I recommend Tom Kyte's books. He's definitely an Oracle evangelist, but he knows what he's talking about.
rbanffy 13y ago
> Oracle is sold on the golf course This is sadly true for most proprietary IT. What would be the solution? A rigid code of ethics that would prevent IT executives from meeting their vendors outside the office? I once worked for a company that had its CTO fired because he accepted a trip to Paris (so he could speak at a vendor-sponsored event), but only after buying a couple million dollars of inadequate and overly expensive hardware. Now he's a senior exec at said vendor. Hint to senior IT execs: if one of your providers names you "Executive of the Year", watch out: it's probably because you are their most profitable cash cow.
- mjolk 13y ago
  >This is sadly true for most proprietary IT. What would be the solution? Not a solution, but I think this is in the right direction: A business model in which IT execs with purchasing power have a vested interest in seeing the business succeed -- either financially or from an purely-engineering perspective. I believe the first point speaks to itself. The second, while it aligns with my bias that engineers make better tech execs (the engineer that 'works his way up' comes with perspective, knowledge, and wisdom), I still believe that engineers look after each other and at least know when they're fucking over the next guy for some wine or a couple days in a different city. Unfortunately, this is my only suggestion because it's hard to do an ethics-test that's relevant and it's reasonably difficult to fire execs that you know aren't honor-bound. >A rigid code of ethics that would prevent IT executives from meeting their vendors outside the office? I've been taken out for drinks by vendors trying to close a deal. None have yet. When I grow a personal business to the point of free trips, there's a chance I'll take those if they don't interfere with my performance or come with a moral price-tag. Which is to say, there's nothing inherently wrong with meeting salespeople outside of the office -- it's a just a conversation and "practice business." If the vendor is selling something interesting, who knows, maybe it's worth comparing against your current solution. This is somewhat of a cherry-picked hypothetical anecdote, but I wouldn't choose any solution that makes for pissed-off engineers or burns money. >I once worked for a company that had its CTO fired because he accepted a trip to Paris (so he could speak at a vendor-sponsored event), but only after buying a couple million dollars of inadequate and overly expensive hardware. That's just corruption and lack of oversight. I realize that at some point, you have to trust the decisions of your CTO, but if he doesn't have significant skin in the game (and a couple million dollars isn't chump change to the company), this purchase order should have triggered a review of the proposal.
justthisonce12 13y ago
I know it's a pretty popular view to skewer Oracle, considering how much money they make from licensing and how little they seem to do. From the other side, I work at a medium-sized consultancy that handles Oracle databases as well as other products. I work with open source, big data technologies (Hadoop, Mongo, Cassandra), and I talk to some of our top Oracle guys sometimes. Oracle does everything, and it does it damn-near automatically - look at the concepts guide (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e40540.pdf http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e40540.pdf) if you want to see how many types of JOIN an Oracle DB can choose from. Exadata has more, I think, and half the performance stuff isn't even documented, it's just buried in query plans. I'll tell an Oracle guy, "hey, we just got hash-bucket joins", or skip scans, or some other enhancement, and it's like the OSS competition is still in the 90s compared to what Oracle can do. You can complain that Oracle charges a lot of money, but in a lot of cases it's NIH syndrone. Drop in Postgres instead, then spend 6 months tuning it, or spend the difference buying extra hardware to scale out. Roll your own ERP, and forever have a small dev team of 4 guys who cost you half a million dollars to support it, because you didn't want to buy off-the-shelf, because your pride as a developer stops you from learning someone else's tool.
- kokey 13y ago
  I spent many years bashing Oracle. Sometimes it's for the pain of the installer being different to deploying open source software, other times it's for the bill the company had to pay to Oracle. Then I actually started working with the database product, and this was to use Oracle to be a warehouse for MongoDB data. The experience has made me fairly positive of the Oracle product, fairly keen to avoid MongoDB in general, and has also spoiled my experience of MySQL and Postgres since because of features I've been spoilt with.
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    I can understand MongoDB and MySQL - but what features were missing from Postgres?
    - hibikir 13y ago

bananas 13y ago

I think you just described most corporations. Despite the PR otherwise, they're all rotten to the core like this. However in this specific case, if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Vendors are generally pretty tight with documentation when it's a cut-throat sector.

ZoFreX 13y ago
> if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Yes, yes we would.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  w3schools? No. I wouldn't.
  - etfb 13y ago
    Yeah, w3schools is not a good example. Stack Exchange, however...

MisterBastahrd 13y ago

Doesn't help that their own website is barely Web 1.0. It's damned near impossible to find anything in their documentation unless you've already memorized all the hoops you need to jump through.

ams6110 13y ago
asktom.oracle.com is something of a gem within that site. The navigation isn't great but there's a lot of good "how to" questions and answers there. I found it very helpful when I was working with Oracle. Also I recommend Tom Kyte's books. He's definitely an Oracle evangelist, but he knows what he's talking about.

rbanffy 13y ago

> Oracle is sold on the golf course This is sadly true for most proprietary IT. What would be the solution? A rigid code of ethics that would prevent IT executives from meeting their vendors outside the office? I once worked for a company that had its CTO fired because he accepted a trip to Paris (so he could speak at a vendor-sponsored event), but only after buying a couple million dollars of inadequate and overly expensive hardware. Now he's a senior exec at said vendor. Hint to senior IT execs: if one of your providers names you "Executive of the Year", watch out: it's probably because you are their most profitable cash cow.

mjolk 13y ago
>This is sadly true for most proprietary IT. What would be the solution? Not a solution, but I think this is in the right direction: A business model in which IT execs with purchasing power have a vested interest in seeing the business succeed -- either financially or from an purely-engineering perspective. I believe the first point speaks to itself. The second, while it aligns with my bias that engineers make better tech execs (the engineer that 'works his way up' comes with perspective, knowledge, and wisdom), I still believe that engineers look after each other and at least know when they're fucking over the next guy for some wine or a couple days in a different city. Unfortunately, this is my only suggestion because it's hard to do an ethics-test that's relevant and it's reasonably difficult to fire execs that you know aren't honor-bound. >A rigid code of ethics that would prevent IT executives from meeting their vendors outside the office? I've been taken out for drinks by vendors trying to close a deal. None have yet. When I grow a personal business to the point of free trips, there's a chance I'll take those if they don't interfere with my performance or come with a moral price-tag. Which is to say, there's nothing inherently wrong with meeting salespeople outside of the office -- it's a just a conversation and "practice business." If the vendor is selling something interesting, who knows, maybe it's worth comparing against your current solution. This is somewhat of a cherry-picked hypothetical anecdote, but I wouldn't choose any solution that makes for pissed-off engineers or burns money. >I once worked for a company that had its CTO fired because he accepted a trip to Paris (so he could speak at a vendor-sponsored event), but only after buying a couple million dollars of inadequate and overly expensive hardware. That's just corruption and lack of oversight. I realize that at some point, you have to trust the decisions of your CTO, but if he doesn't have significant skin in the game (and a couple million dollars isn't chump change to the company), this purchase order should have triggered a review of the proposal.

justthisonce12 13y ago

I know it's a pretty popular view to skewer Oracle, considering how much money they make from licensing and how little they seem to do. From the other side, I work at a medium-sized consultancy that handles Oracle databases as well as other products. I work with open source, big data technologies (Hadoop, Mongo, Cassandra), and I talk to some of our top Oracle guys sometimes. Oracle does everything, and it does it damn-near automatically - look at the concepts guide (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e40540.pdf http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e40540.pdf) if you want to see how many types of JOIN an Oracle DB can choose from. Exadata has more, I think, and half the performance stuff isn't even documented, it's just buried in query plans. I'll tell an Oracle guy, "hey, we just got hash-bucket joins", or skip scans, or some other enhancement, and it's like the OSS competition is still in the 90s compared to what Oracle can do. You can complain that Oracle charges a lot of money, but in a lot of cases it's NIH syndrone. Drop in Postgres instead, then spend 6 months tuning it, or spend the difference buying extra hardware to scale out. Roll your own ERP, and forever have a small dev team of 4 guys who cost you half a million dollars to support it, because you didn't want to buy off-the-shelf, because your pride as a developer stops you from learning someone else's tool.

kokey 13y ago
I spent many years bashing Oracle. Sometimes it's for the pain of the installer being different to deploying open source software, other times it's for the bill the company had to pay to Oracle. Then I actually started working with the database product, and this was to use Oracle to be a warehouse for MongoDB data. The experience has made me fairly positive of the Oracle product, fairly keen to avoid MongoDB in general, and has also spoiled my experience of MySQL and Postgres since because of features I've been spoilt with.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  I can understand MongoDB and MySQL - but what features were missing from Postgres?
  - hibikir 13y ago