I agree wholeheartedly, the reason being (to share my
own experiences), that some months ago I sent some
feedback on an (unrelated) article in Oracle magazine
because I thought much of it was incorrect.
I got a reply from the author of the article basically
agreeing with my points.
Of course, *that* reply came offline, not in the
magazine!
Cheers
Connor
- Jonathan Lewis <jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk>
wrote: >
>
> I think it was only a few weeks ago that
> I posted a list of errors in an article about
> statspack that Oracle Magazine published
> in January.
>
> You may be interested to see that another reader
> sent a letter to the editor about the same article,
> which has been published, with a response, in
> the March issue.
>
> <<quote>>
>
> 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.
>
> <<end quote>>
>
> << my comment>>
>
> It is, of course, unfortunate that this 'correction'
> is actually
> wrong. Although the manuals have persistently
> stated, until
> very recently, that freelist groups were relevant
> only to OPS,
> they have been effective in single instance Oracle
> for a long
> time - possibly as far back as 7.2.3
>
> <<end of my comment>>
>
> <<Rich Niemiec's reply>>
>
> 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.
>
> <<end of reply>>
>
>
> <<My comments>>
>
> Surely the point of a 'readers comments' section is
> to get feedback from the readers, add value to the
> article by including readers' experiences or extra
> observations, allow expression of readers' attitudes
> and feelings (without an aggressive editorial
> response),
> and, if an actual error does get noted, allow a
> correction
> to be published.
>
>
> So why publish this erroneous correction ? It did
> not
> add value to the article, it didn't even expose the
> need
> for clarification of a point. It merely elicited a
> repetition
> of some material that had already been stated in the
> article (which originally said: "... If this is the
> case, increase
> the freelist groups or increase the pctused to
> pctfree gap"...)
> plus the claim that the author had to be right
> because the
> comment was taken from Metalink.
>
>
> It would, quite arguably, have been valid to reply
> with
> something like: "Your comments do, indeed reflect
> a well-known, and often documented, misconception
> about freelist groups. However, the behaviour
> changed in
> Oracle 7.X.X, and single-instance Oracle will take
> advantage of multiple free list groups. Be careful,
> however, that you set FREELISTS and FREELIST
> GROUPS to relatively co-prime numbers, or you
> will lose some of the benefits etc....."
>
>
> So what has the dialogue achieved:
>
> a) It hasn't improved the knowledge of the
> readers.
>
> b) It has told readers that they had better not
> write in if they think that there is an error in
> one of the articles unless they want to run
> the risk of looking stupid in public.
>
> c) It has given Rich Niemiec the chance to
> say "I'm right, you're wrong - yah, boo, sucks".
>
>
> I'm not impressed..
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Jonathan Lewis
> http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk
>
> Coming soon one-day tutorials:
> Cost Based Optimisation
> Trouble-shooting and Tuning
> Indexing Strategies
> (see http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/tutorial.html )
>
> ____UK_______March 19th
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> ____UK_______April 22nd
>
> ____USA_(FL)_May 2nd
>
>
> Next Seminar dates:
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>
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>
>
> The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ
> http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.html
>
>
>
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
> http://www.orafaq.net
> --
> Author: Jonathan Lewis
> INET: jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk
>
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Received on Sun Mar 02 2003 - 02:18:38 CST
