RE: Extract from Oracle magazine March - readers letters

I really wish you to communicate this with Oracle Magazine. ...At the risk, of course, of having your heavily edited letter published in the magazine.  

Cary Millsap
Hotsos Enterprises, Ltd.
http://www.hotsos.com

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-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 9:02 AM
To: Jonathan Lewis; Members Oak Table

This is actually an appalling example of magazine editing and breaks a number of basic rules when it comes to publishing feedback.

Letters if encouraged and published should *add* to the information already
covered. This could be by adding reader attitudes and feelings, by addressing errors or inaccuracies, by adding personal experiences, by providing additional information and expanding on what was covered etc. etc.

Encouragement should also be addressed by ensuring letters have appropriate
acknowledgments, have non threatening editorial comment, etc. etc.

The problem with publishing this particular letter is that it goes totally
against the above. It provides absolutely no additional information on the
article it was addressing and serves no positive purpose. It does I guess
suggest an attitude of "I was right, I told you so" but this should be somewhat redundant when the assumption of the readership should be that everything is perfectly accurate unless stated otherwise. It's totally the
wrong way around.

The other thing publishing the letter does is make Don look like a right twit (no further comment) and makes the readership think "shit, if I provided some feedback and inadvertently make a mistake, Oracle could very
well publish it and make me look like a goose - bugger that". It's not a particularly "nice" thing for Oracle to have done and does absolutely nothing to encourage someone to write in. All I can say it was lucky I didn't send in my letter with the suggestion that one way to reduce block
contention is to tell the users to log off the database and go home ....

The fact that this was the only issue raised of course suggests that the article was absolutely accurate and that no one could come up with a valid
correction or clarification.

You've got to admit, it is kinda funny in both a "ha ha" and "what the ..."
sort of way ;)

Richard
----- Original Message -----
To: "Members Oak Table" <list42_at_oaktable.net> Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 3:53 PM

>
>
> <<letter sent in by reader>>
> I found an error in "Advanced Tuning with Statspack" in your January/
> February 2003 issue. Rich Niemiec writes that in the event of a wait
> on a segment header to increase the Freelist groups. Freelist groups
> only apply to Oracle9i RAC systems, and have nothing to do buffer busy
> waits on non-RAC systems.
> Donald K. Burleson
> don_at_burleson.cc
>
> <<reply by author>>
> Freelist groups do, in fact, have some benefits apart from Oracle9i
> RAC. MetaLink says that Freelist groups can have a positive impact in
> an exclusive environment (non-RAC) by helping reduce contention on the
> segment header. However, I should point out that segment header block
> contention can be addressed without multiple Freelist groups, for
> example, by increasing the pctfree/pctused gap or by partitioning the
> segment.
> Rich Niemiec
> niemiecr_at_tusc.com
>
>
> <<my cynical comment>>
> Do you think this was the only error that Don
> found, or was his letter edited down to just
> this because this was the only one in it where
> Don was wrong ?
>
>
> Regards
>
> Jonathan Lewis
> http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk
>
> Coming soon one-day tutorials:
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>
> The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ
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>
>
>
>

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-- 
Author: Cary Millsap
  INET: cary.millsap_at_hotsos.com

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