Re: 10G New Features Book

From: Mogens Nørgaard <mln_at_miracleas.dk>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 01:09:17 +0200
Message-ID: <408D969D.4020104@miracleas.dk>

In general, and to me, the RTFM and CTNOM (Check This Note On Metalink) are becoming increasingly rediculous (spelling?!?) to use against fellow citizens of the Oracle universe. Allow me to elaborate:

RTFM

Well, since the Oracle docs are no longer real books that you can bring with you, we're all slowly but surely being reduced to CTRL-F based search (no rescue) missions instead of reading through them page by page as a book. It's a very fragmented way of learning stuff we use now. For those of us who have worked in Oracle Support we know the feeling: Too much to cover, by definition not enough time to really learn... GoTo CTRL-F, Metalink, Web-IV, etc.

Expecting anybody to actually read all the docs (be they in PDF format or printed out using 20.000 pieces of paper or more) is absurd. No - none, nichts, nada, ingen - folks today can do that. Inside or outside the Oracle firewall... it doesn't matter. It's not humanely possible.

So is it fair to RTFM people on the Oracle docs today? I don't think it is, really. And if anybody does, just wait until you can RTFM them back.

CTNOM

This is one I really, really hate. When someone has studied the installation manuals, the release notes, the extra notes attached, and the warnings posted here and there ... and something still doesn't work... they're then told (after some searching inside Oracle using Web-IV OR studying dozens of notes that actually require something close to Support expertise to interpret) that they should have studied Note #42. The flashing red light, the warning sign that THIS WILL GO WRONG is not part of some Early Warning System. It's just another Note among millions.

Mogens

Daniel Fink wrote:

> Aw, gee Pete. You are so right. My gosh, I feel so shamed... How
> could I have possibly missed it! Instead of wasting my time
> reading the New Features, Concepts and Admin docs (especially
> the sections related to creating a database), I should have
> carefully read Chapter 15 of the Performance Tuning Guide for
> that one sentence about automatic stats gathering.
>
> ;*)
>
> Dan
>
> "Controlling Pete is like herding cats writing COTS packages in
> Java"
>
>
> Pete Sharman wrote:
>

>>And all I can say is that Dan didn't read the manuals thoroughly enough!  :=
>>)
>>
>> =
>>
>>Pete
>> =
>>
>>"Controlling developers is like herding cats."
>>Kevin Loney, Oracle DBA Handbook
>> =
>>
>>"Oh no, it's not.  It's much harder than that!"
>>Bruce Pihlamae, long-term Oracle DBA

>
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Received on Mon Apr 26 2004 - 18:06:20 CDT