Sunday, April 25, 2010

COLLABORATE: "I Hate Toad"

Saying something like that really endears you to a vendor.

Thankfully, I know Jeff Smith of Toad from his recent trip down to Tampa.

At dinner later that evening, I told him as much. He finally got it out of me that it isn't really Toad's fault, but the developers that use it. I agreed.

Unfortunately when I said it at COLLABORATE (jokingly of course), one of his colleagues heard me. Uh oh. Anyway, I had to explain why it is I "hate" Toad and think he was mostly happy with my answer.

Ultimately, a tool that helps you increase your productivity is a good thing. I like and have used the DBA pack that comes with Toad. However, many "developers" I have worked with can't live without Toad...and that's where I have a problem.

So trying to be fair, I asked Mr. Smith to walk me through Quest Code Tester. I "like" testing and think it is one of the bigger problems in the database developer community; in that we don't do it very well. Java, .NET, and many others have it built in (mostly anyway) to what they do. How many times have you seen a database developer run through unit tests on his or her code? I've seen exactly 1 shop (where I learned it).

quest 1quest 2
quest 3quest 4

From that demo, I would say it has much, if not more, of the functionality in SQL Developer. I haven't had a chance yet to really use that one either.

But if you would like to try out it, there is a free trial version (registration required)

2 comments:

hillbillyToad said...

Wow, what a great title Chet ;)

The ideal world would probably involve IT Pros who satisfy specific reqs before given entry to the database, esp before given a tool as powerful as Toad.

Of course, I'd also say your post should probably say 'I Hate GUI Tools', but since Toad is the de-facto standard, that works too :)

oraclenerd said...

I would take it one step further...make them do testing for a year before giving them access to any GUI. Well, they could do their testing with a GUI...I'm not that much of a bastard (or am I?).