Re: Fssnap and Oracle 9i

Holger Baer wrote:

> I don't know what's got into you lately, but you've gone into
> the habit of taking comments very personal.

Well, that's one way of looking at it. On the other hand, it could be that a small handful of posters have lately *been* personal.

> Perhap's it might help if I replay this thread as I received it
> (and probably not as anyone who participated in it wanted it to
> go, drift or what ever):
>
> OP asked if fssnap can be used for backups while the instance is
> up and running. Ana C.Dent stepped in and said try it out, which
> was certainly not helpful so you stepped in. And with regards to
> backup I might add, who, if not you should know the answer (well
> perhaps there are many people on earth that know as much or more
> about backup & recovery in oracle, however, they rarely show up
> in this group).

I wouldn't go so far as "if not [me]" then who? But I certainly do know my hot backup material, and I could do without facetious little comments from Joel trying to make out that I don't. Of course, *he* knows I know hot backups too. But the OP might not. In Joel's game, I imagine that giving the right impression of another's incompetence might be everything.

Now if Joel had expressed his comments as you are just about to do in the next paragraph, or as I suggested he might have done in my 'thread drift example' post, that would have been one thing.

But he didn't. Do you think he would ever reply to a Jonathan Lewis post "Isn't that what latches are for?"?!

> Now while your answer was precise and correct,

Thank you. I thought so too. Joel has, of course, said that it was "below par", sub-standard and incorrect.

> it left me too
> wondering, why you didn't mention what Oracle offers to make
> hot backups working. It's just not you to leave that out.

Because the OP didn't ask about them. The context of his question was, I have this tool. Will it do the job safely? Now, I could have mentioned 'yes, if you write a begin backup script'. To my mind, and in my way of looking at things, that is effectively a "no, not unless you do lots of other hoop-jumping".

A similar dispute arose a while ago: can you install Oracle on a machine running DHCP? No, actually you can't. "Ah, but you can install a loopback adapter and give it a fixed IP address," say others. Yes, say I, but that simply means you've installed onto a machine DESPITE DHCP, not 'with' it.

It's a difference in perspective, I suppose, and we are *all* entitled to have them without one-liner attempts to make one party sound foolish or incompetent for seeing it that way. In my estimation, and by my reading of the original post, the guy wanted to know whether his backup tool would work, as is, without additional scripting. And hence the answer I gave him.

Now Joel -and you- are entitled to wonder at my reasoning. We can also happily permit "thread drift" as Joel put it, whereby someone else can chip in and maybe ask 'Howard, why didn't you mention using fssnap in conjunction with a hot backup script'. And then we would have gotten to a discussion about whether we should be recommended home-brew scripts these days for 9i databases when RMAN is available to all and sundry.

Point is, the thread has blown up, not because I was under the weather, wrong, incompetent or missed bits out by mistake. It has blown up because Joel (IMO) wanted to big-note himself at my expense by pointing out something I didn't mention ...only then to go on and recommend RMAN himself anyway!

> So Joel stepped in and gently asked about hot backups. I'm neither
> natural english nor had an education in languages, so I might
> missed some fine nuances of his answer, but I was really surprised
> how you reacted. And the rest of the thread really should not have
> happend.

Your definition of "gently" is not mine, which is fine.

All Joel went on to say was "Yeah, I think he should use RMAN too". But it was what came before that which shouldn't have happened.  

Don't you think, if all Joel wanted to do was 'gently' question why I hadn't mentioned hot backups he could have posted 'Howard, just curious: why didn't you mention hot backups?'.

I accept that it is a subtle nuance between that and "Isn't that what hot backups are for?" And "mostly true and correct, but why wouldn't hot backups [do]..."

But in a world where there is a profound difference between "keep" and "pin" that is not a negligible difference.

I found Joel's comments personally slighting, which is one thing and I could live with it. But I also found them unhelpful to the original poster. He didn't explain hot backups to the OP, just asked me (snidely, I thought) why they wouldn't work. In the process, he 'tainted' my answer, making it out to be incomplete and wrong, though he ended up agreeing with its ultimate conclusion! That is likely just to be confusing for the OP. And it's that which really sent me off. Unless one really can add something useful, helpful, enlightening or usefully provocative, there really isn't much point posting to a thread, I think.

Look at the current 'can you make a table read-only' thread for an example of useful, constructive, provocative "thread drift". Joel's effort isn't anywhere in that league.

But whatever.

In this Usenet world we live in, we have to put up with much worse than Joel from time to time. And I am over the entire discussion, especially since the OP hasn't come back to enlighten the discussion any further (and who can blame him -though that's another reason why I felt Joel's post was completely unwarranted and unnecessary).

Your thoughtful comments have indeed been worthwhile. I hope my response shows some measure of similar thought: that I'm not just over-sensitive or paranoid.

Regards
HJR Received on Wed Oct 20 2004 - 03:59:07 CDT