Oracle Corporation | Technology Tales

A year in the making…

17^th January 2008

It was a year ago that I set this blog on the go. Then, I was exploring the possibilities offered by WordPress.com. After some months, I decided that I wanted to make my own decisions rather than have them, so I went independent in June. Between those dates, some big launches took my attention: Windows Vista, Office 2007 & CS3 come to mind. All the while, my experience of UNIX, Oracle and other such matters kept growing more and more. In the latter half of the year, I finally made the leap from Windows to Linux on the home computing front, a decision that taught me a lot and one that I don't regret. Other subjects featured from time to time as well; my musings on web development and blogging made their appearance too. 2007 was a packed year on the technology front, and 2008 is only just getting under way. There's a Vista laptop, and I am already picking up ideas for posts, though I am not going to force them out like I might have tried to do last year. 2008 may be a spot more leisurely, but I hope that it's just as interesting.

A second post today?

16^th January 2008

While I know what I said about a post every two days, something has entered my head that seems timely. Things seem to starting up for 2008 and my getting a swathe of post ideas is only one of them. Today, Sun has bought up MySQL, the database that stores these ruminations for posterity, and Oracle has finally got its hands on Bea, the people behind the Weblogic software with which I have had an indirect brush for a lot of 2007.

SQL Developer Java error

6^th June 2007

Last night, I tried starting up Oracle's SQL Developer so that I could add a listing of my hillwalking blog posts to my website's site map with a spot of PHP scripting. However, all that I got was something like that which you see below:

Java Error returned on launching Oracle SQL Developer

I must confess that this one threw me. The solution, though challenging to find (they often are, even with the abilities of Google) was to use a batch file called sqldeveloper.bat that you can find in the [installation directory]\sqldeveloper\bin directory. It does start the thing when all else seems to fail and got me up and running again. I did get that blog post listing added to the site map after all; Having more visibility of the MySQL tables was a definite plus point.

Learning about Oracle

20^th April 2007

My work in the last week has put me on something of a learning about Oracle. This is down to my needing to add file metadata to a database as part of an application that I am developing. Since the application is written in SAS, I am using SAS/Access for Oracle to update the database using SQL pass-through statements written in Oracle SQL. I am used to SAS SQL and there is commonality between it and Oracle’s implementation, which is a big help. Nevertheless, there, of course, are things specific to the Oracle world about which I have needed to learn. My experiences have introduced me to concepts like triggers, sequences, constraints, primary keys, foreign keys and the like. In addition, I have also seen the results of database normalisation at first hand.

Using Oracle’s SQL Developer has been a great help in my endeavours, thanks to its online help and the way that you can view database objects in an easy-to-use manner. It also runs SQL scripts, giving you a feel for how Oracle works, and anyone can download it for free upon registration on the Oracle website. Additionally, I have installed the Oracle 10g database Express edition at home, which serves as a valuable personal learning resource. That is another free download from Oracle’s website.

My Safari bookshelf has been another invaluable resource, providing access to O’ Reilly’s Oracle books. Of these, Mastering Oracle SQL has proved particularly useful, and I made a journey to Manchester after work this evening (Waterstones on Deansgate is open until 21:00 on weekdays) to see if I could acquire a copy. While that quest was to prove fruitless, I now have got the doorstop that is Oracle Database 10g: The Complete Reference from The Oracle Press, an imprint of Osborne and McGraw Hill. Since I needed a broader grounding in all things Oracle, this should help. Usefully, it also covers SQL, but the aforementioned O’ Reilly volume could return to the wish list if that provision is insufficient.