My Manifesto

I am an Oracle Nerd.

I am not an Oracle fanatic.

I believe that SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, et. al. are all fine databases, but I don't know them like I know Oracle.

Regardless of your database, use it. Stop treating it like a bucket for your data. If you are going to do so, you might as well use flat files...or better yet, XML! Oracle is an incredibly powerful database and I believe in using what I (well, my employer) paid for.

At my current employer, we have numerous Oracle databases on site: Operational Data Store (ODS - mostly raw data from outside agencies), our production OLTP system and 2 data warehouse databases (we're currently trying to re-architect into one). Out of all those, we use exactly zero built in features. No CDC (Change Data Capture), no Advanced Queueing (Streams), hardly any analytics.

I try to keep things as simple as possible. My experience has been that most people want to overcomplicate things...hopefully I can help to change that at my workplace now. It won't be easy, but I'll certainly try.

I want to share my experiences; in my new role as a data warehouse developer, things I have learned designing, developing and maintaining OLTP systems, and my experience with the incredibly powerful APEX (formerly HTMLDB).