ORACLENERD

SOUG: SQL Developer with Syme Kutz

Tonight was the Suncoast Oracle User Group (SOUG) meeting with Syme (pronounced Sim-e, I thought it was Si-me) Kutz of Oracle presenting on SQL Developer, mainly the new Unit Testing functionality.

Unfortunately, I missed the first half of the meeting due to a flight delay, but from what I did see, it's very cool. If you read the announcement last week, you'll remember that Kris Rice had offered up (aka - threw under the bus) Syme. I made first contact and then passed the baton to our meeting coordinator who finalized the arrangement.

If you want to check out the Unit Testing features, you need the latest release (2.1), which can be found here. To access it, go to Tools --> Unit Testing

I won't go into gory details simply because I need to use the dang thing first. I'm sure I'll have some posts in the near future.

Anyway, what I did see was pretty slick.

Syme then gave us some history of the product (developed originally by himself and Mr. Rice) and explained a bit more about some of the functionality. Many of you already know about the integration with APEX (I don't know much, other than it exists). That's about to be expanded and will give even more control over many aspects of APEX, including some pretty tight integration with the Unit Testing module.

One really cool thing that he mentioned, if you open up a trace file in SQL Developer, you get a pretty report for it. Apparently reverse engineered from tkprof.

First, find your trace file:

find trace file

Double click it to open it and you'll see something like this (you'll have to click through on this one):

I will break it down if you're too lazy though.

The first column of the report is the SQL:

Next up are the statistics:

Waits:

and finally Row Sources:

Pretty slick stuff.

Thanks Syme for coming down, hopefully we can get you down here again to show us the rest.

Labels: soug, sql developer, testing

¶ 2/26/2010 12:47:00 AM 2 Comments Links to this post

SOUG: SQL Developer Unit Testing

This week the Suncoast Oracle Users Group will be hosting Syme Kutz, Senior Architect for Database Tools at Oracle.

Update
I received Syme's bio (from Syme of course). It's pretty impressive...

I started working at Oracle in October of 1995 in the Systems Performance Group of Consulting under Cary Millsap.

I then spent 8 years tuning the Database and Oracle Applications. My Experience tuning application lead me to work with Max Schierson fixing and Tuning iStore. I left consulting and moved into Applications It working for Max at Headquarters were our focus was building custom applications to better facilitate oracle policies and programs. I built custom applications until a position opened up on APEX the development team. After rebuilding the Database management side of APEX, Kris Rice and I began the Sql Developer project. When the group split and Sql Developer became a product I followed. I have been a developer on Sql Developer since then building various functionality, such as reports and Unti Testing.

We "found" Syme through Kris Rice who unceremoniously offered his services up on Twitter.

After much wrangling and negotiating, we finally managed to talk Syme into coming down from Orlando.

According to Kris, Syme was heavily involved with the new Unit Testing functionality of SQL Developer. We all know how much testing us database folks do, so it makes perfect sense right?

Anyway, if you're in town and Thursday, please come by and check out Syme's presentation, it should be very interesting.

Labels: soug, sql developer, testing

¶ 2/21/2010 11:12:00 PM 3 Comments Links to this post

SOUG: Holiday Party

I've got a great reason to go outside this evening, SOUG's annual holiday party is tonight.

Read all about it here.

It will be held at the laughing cat which is located here.

If you are in the Tampa Bay area, stop by...just don't forget to RSVP or Troy will get mad...and so will I if there isn't enough food for me.

Labels: soug

¶ 12/10/2009 01:19:00 PM 1 Comments Links to this post

Secretary Justice

I started out as a secretary and it's come full circle now.

Tonight I was elected Secretary of the Suncoast Oracle Users Group (SOUG).

What does that mean? Well, pretty simple I think. Blog. Sum up the meetings in a fun and easy to read way to convince them that they are really missing out.

As a member of the board, I will also (eventually) push for twice monthly meetings. One more formal with the presentation format and one more casual.

We spent an hour tonight talking after the presentation...it would be nice to do that in a more relaxed environment.

Fortunately, I've been writing about the group for some time, so this is just a natural extension of that. I look forward to serving.

Plus, it's another job I have that doesn't pay anything. ;)

Labels: soug

¶ 11/12/2009 10:23:00 PM 3 Comments Links to this post

(Old) Social Media and Travis Page

Driving home on Wednesday listing to the local AM station, 970 WFLA, there was an announcement for the radio resumes and the most recent winner, Travis Page.

Travis then came on air, told us a little about himself and what he was looking for. I couldn't believe it when I heard Database Technologies.

Really? On the radio? I couldn't believe it.

When I got home I had to check this guy out. First thing I wanted to know, was he an Oracle guy or a Microsoft guy. Reading through his resume I found that he did have a little bit of Oracle, but he was obviously focused on SQL Server. Boo.

I had to give the guy credit though. I look(ed) for jobs through twitter, dice, monster, etc., pretty much all the places where you didn't have to talk. This guy used the radio. The radio isn't new, or shiny. Perhaps it can be shiny...but I digress.

So I dropped Travis a line telling him about tonight's SOUG meeting and encouraged him to attend. Sure enough he did.

I love that kind of dedication. I've tried to help people in the past only to see them ignore my advice.

So, if you're in the Tampa Bay area and looking for a junior developer, either Oracle or SQL Server (ugh), call Travis immediately for an interview.

We talked for a bit after the meeting and seems like a very genuine guy (plus, he showed up!). Besides his little SQL Server problem, I think a company could find good use out of a guy like him. Resourceful and dedicated are two very good traits to have in an employee.

If you missed it up above, you can find Travis' resume here.

Labels: jobs, soug, work

¶ 7/24/2009 12:13:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

SOUG: Attack Your Database Before Others Do

SOUG, also know as the Suncoast Oracle Users Group, is holding it's montly meeting tomorrow night in Tampa. The meeting is held at the PricewaterhouseCoopers facilities located across the street from Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Todd DeSantis, of Sentrigo will be presenting. I will not try and recreate the presentation description, I'll just practice the fine art of cut and paste.

In this presentation, we will show typical security flaws found in PL/SQL and Java code due to programmer mistakes. We will demonstrate how to use existing open-source scanning and fuzzing tools to automatically find and flag such flaws, and also demonstrate how creating your own tools in PL/SQL can help you keep your code secure.

In this presentation, you will learn:
1. Common security mistakes developers make
2. How to use open source tools to find those mistakes
3. How to roll out your own PL/SQL fuzzer

Todd DeSantis brings a wealth of technical knowledge and a passion for using technology to better society to his position as lead North American Sales Engineer at Sentrigo. With a background in computer science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Todd has been using his understanding of computer programming and database systems throughout his career. At Sentrigo Todd is striving to bring a higher level of database security and safety to the enterprise. Prior to Sentrigo Todd successfully helped Fortune 50 companies rethink data access paradigms with Endeca Technologies. Todd started his career at Enerjy Technologies where he helped organizations improve overall levels of Java code quality and visibility. In his spare time Todd, an avid audiophile, enjoys working toward creating the 'absolute sound' with hi-fi audio systems, and enjoys many different genres of music.

There are possible opportunities for (beer) networking afterwards.

Labels: soug

¶ 7/22/2009 05:18:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

SOUG: Oracle OLAP - John Paredes

I just returned from the SOUG meeting. Yes, it's 3 or 4 hours after the meeting officially ended. I needed to relax and enjoy the company of one Mr. Dan McGhan. I'll get to that in a minute though.

Tonight's presentation was on Oracle's OLAP capabilities by John Paredes who is the author of The Multidimensional Data Modeling Toolkit. John's education is in Electrical Engineering and Statistics. He's scary smart. Scientist smart. The first five minutes he demonstrated a sharp wit and a great sense of humor. Unfortunately he didn't go into the details that I was hoping for with OLAP.

I asked if he could explain the difference between OLAP and a product like OBIEE. I'm not sure he gave me an exact response, but I believe I was able to glean how OLAP fit into the Data Warehouse world. Now, I could be wrong, but OLAP essentially sits atop the data warehouse similar to a aggregate materialized view, only it's a cube...which apparently can have 5 dimensions. I thought a cube was 3, but admittedly I don't know enough about OLAP (or how it relates to data warehousing).

Ultimately his presentation was interesting. I would have preferred fewer slides and more of the technical stuff, but that's me. He discussed the role of an analyst in being able to turn this data into information that the business could then use. I did like the term Exploratory Data Analysis, which basically means, let me see the data and then I might figure something out.

The short of it, I would like to have beers with John, he just needs to utilize his natural skills a little better.

Oh yeah, Dan McGhan. I "presented" with Dan last year on Application Express at SOUG. By "presented" I mean I let him do all the talking and I not so quietly threw small problems at him by not installing Flash or dropping a table or something fun like that...I just wanted to see how he would handle it.

So we finally got out of there around 8 and headed over to Selmon's, a local eatery (more importantly though it has a bar). He described a project he's working on, to basically create PL/SQL libraries that will eventually be released into the wild. He's already released TapiGen, which generates code to do UPDATE/INSERT/DELETE on specific tables (which I'm not a huge fan of, but can at least appreciate his initiative) and also plRecur which generates dates based on recurrence. Modeled after the syntax used in DBMS_SCHEDULER. Thankfully, thankfully, Dan has seen the light and finally switched to putting commas where they belong...at the end of the line. I've been after him for that since we met. I told he we couldn't hang out until he changed.

Dan is an incredibly resourceful guy and very much under-appreciated. He's got a million ideas about future projects that I had to have a beer or 2 just to keep up with them.

It was a good night, some nice technical content and good (Oracle) conversation afterwards.

Labels: soug

¶ 5/29/2009 12:32:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Where is Tom Kyte?

In Tampa of course for the annual Suncoast Oracle User's Group Technology Day.

Sadly I will miss this year's event due to the fact that, 1, I have no vacation time saved up and 2, I'm going to COLLABORATE 09 in Orlando in a couple of weeks.

This is a great event, so if you are in the Tampa Bay area, go. Did I mention it was free?

Labels: soug

¶ 4/21/2009 10:30:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

SOUG: 2008 Technology Day

The Suncoast Oracle Users Group (SOUG) will be putting on their annual Technology Day on May 13th. If you are in Tampa or the surrounding area, you should go.

I went in 2006 (from Gainesville) and had a great time. Tom Kyte spoke that year. Surprisingly, my favorite speaker was this guy from Sun (I can't remember his name for the life of me). The main thrust of his presentation was the open sourcing of Solaris 10. He said something about DTrace (I think), way over my head. But his enthusiasm was contagious.

I've always wanted to learn a non-Windows OS, but I could never decide what flavor. Just too many choices.

Solaris 10 was free and it ran Oracle. Perfect!

I did recently create a Solaris 10 Virtual Machine, but I still haven't gotten around to attempting to install Oracle on it.

Anyway, it's a good time, especially for those of you starved for "nerd" companionship!

(Yes, another poll, these are pretty cool. Thanks to Mr. Eddie Awad for the polling link. I think he used it a couple of years ago and I've used it every since)