Re: So what if 8i is outta support ?

"Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message news:417afd2e$0$19059$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au...
> David Sharples wrote:
>
> >
> > "DA Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message
> > news:1098563500.920932_at_yasure...
> >> Robert wrote:
> >>
> >>> 8i is outta support 12-31-2004, correct ?
> >>>
> >>> Is it such a "big deal" or horror to be running 8i after that date ?
> >>
> >> Only if in 5 years you expect to be fully qualified to flip burgers
> >> for a living.
> >>
> >> Last week I was interviewing PL/SQL developers. No one whose experience
> >> was 8i (and not 9i) was even considered. Next week I begin interviewing
> >> DBA candidates. Those whose primary experience is 8i won't get past
> >> having their resumes tossed into the recycling.
> >> --
> >> Daniel A. Morgan
> >> University of Washington
> >> damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
> >> (replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)
> >
> > features can be learned. I would much rather employ someone who has the
> > capacity to learn who knows basic concepts well. By tossing away
> > candidates just because their current employer doesn't use 9i or you are
> > possibly missing out on some excellent people
> >
> > but thats just my opinion
>
> And an entirely sensible one, if you ask me.
>
> I'd employ a SQL Server user if he showed a bit of get-up-and-go, a
> willingness to learn, a willingness to research, a desire for precision
and
> facts. Point of fact, I did once employ a database instructor who had
> worked his entire career previously in Quark Xpress page design. And he
> turned into the best instructor I ever employed.
>
> It is as utterly daft in my book to toss out a CV because it doesn't
mention
> 9i as it is to toss IN one because it contains the magic letters 'OCP'.
>
> Regards
> HJR
>

Just want to add my 2 eurocents (like anyone cares, ha ! - sorry that was a joke).

I'm currently working as a DBA/sysadmin for a federal institute here in Belgium. We are running Oracle 8.1.7 on AIX 4.3.3 with HACMP. So no Oracle 9i, no "cool" RAC's, no 64-bit Linux, ... yet ! (well we have one smallish Oracle 9i db that's not worth looking at, still it's fun to play with its spfile ;-)).

So I guess I don't know really that much about Oracle 9i, let alone Oracle 10g ... Of course I read a lot about the new features, of course I tried things at home, but it's just not the same "experience" if you can't use it in a "real" situation. Why we haven't done the upgrade yet ? The typical answers : "it's running stable now, don't touch it!","do we really need those new features ?", afraid of too much downtime, hardware incompatibilities (IBM hardware = expensive hardware) etc. When are we planning to upgrade ? Second half of 2005 ... So do I consider myself a "bad" and "out-of-date" Oracle DBA ? Maybe ... I'm still learning a lot though, and most of all : I still CARE about "my" databases and i'm still happy to help any developer to find a solution for their Oracle problems. So should I search for a new job in a technologically more advanced environment ? Maybe ... well the perfect job for me would involve Oracle 9i/10g + Linux in an academic environment, but it's very hard to find (and get !) such a job here in Belgium ...

Just my thoughts,
Matthias Received on Thu Oct 28 2004 - 16:18:37 CDT