Miscellaneous Musings about RMOUG Training Days 2013

I was only able to attend a portion of Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) Training Days 2013, but this was my 13th year to attend all or part of this conference (and my 11th year presenting). I have always enjoyed meeting and talking to the people who attend even as my interests have diverged somewhat from the database-focus that formerly aligned so well for me with the conference. As I have posted on before, this year's conference had a lot of focus on mobile application development in addition to the normal breadth and depth of database-oriented topics. In this post, I look at some of the excellent questions (and my responses) I was asked at my presentation on JavaFX and Groovy and look at some other things I learned while attending.

JavaFX and Groovy

I started my session at 2:45 pm with about 10 people in attendance, but the audience reached about 25 people in size by the end. It was another good RMOUG Training Days audience with good questions that made me think they were understanding what I was trying to convey. I'll address some of those questions with my responses now.

One audience member asked how it worked in the JavaFX example that the overridden start method was never called from the static main function of the application. I explained that the same application class extends javafx.application.Application and, thanks to that inheritance, the start(Stage) method is invoked automatically as part of the JavaFX application lifecycle. That start(Stage) method is declared abstract in Application so concrete child implementations must inherit it. Only a call to one of the Application.launch methods was seen in my example, but the start(Stage) method overridden in the child class gets called via polymorphism during the application's execution.

Another question asked in my presentation had to deal with Oracle's use of JavaFX in their own tooling options such as JDeveloper, Oracle ADF, and the like. I obviously do not know the extent of this, but I was happy to speculate that Oracle would like to use JavaFX in more internal tools to leverage their investment in it. One attendee wondered if some of the Oracle ADF-based mobile applications shown in other sessions of this conference used JavaFX underneath. I don't know enough about that to confirm that.

Although I did not demonstrate it in my presentation, I did mention the availability of SceneBuilder. I also mentioned that while other IDEs such as JDeveloper can support JavaFX, NetBeans appears to be the current leader in JavaFX support.

One or two questions surrounded JavaFX's place in the competitive landscape. I attempted to contrast it with Flex, Silverlight, HTML5, Swing, other languages' graphics libraries, and other native mobile development platforms. In some ways, the determination of what JavaFX is competing against is based on how one wants to use it. In desktop applications, the most common "competitors" are pure Swing (without JavaFX), pure SWT (without JavaFX), Adobe AIR, and other languages' graphical libraries. In web application, obvious "competitors" are HTML5/jQuery and Flex. On mobile applications, obvious competitors include the web stack as well as native languages such as Objective-C for the iOS devices. It could be argued that it's a good thing that JavaFX has or soon will have so many different platforms to compete on, giving JavaFX developers flexibility to apply their skills easily to multiple platforms.

I talked about GroovyFX's support for concurrency as provided in the javafx.concurrent package and I referenced the Concurrency in JavaFX article. An audience member asked about Groovy's support for concurrency. I responded to this by briefly discussing gpars and explaining that gpars (Groovy Parallel Systems) is now bundled with Groovy (since Groovy 1.8).

Additional questions were asked that were, I thought, insightful, but I am not talented enough to write them down and respond to them at the same time and have now temporarily forgotten some of the others.

Before leaving coverage of my own presentation, I want to include two slides that I showed in the presentation and in a "slide show" that I had running while waiting for the start time to arrive. These slides summarize some key moments in the history of JavaFX and history of Groovy.

Thinking back upon the history of JavaFX and Groovy, it is easy to see some similarities between the two. Both started with significant enthusiasm that then seemed to wane for a while before resurgent interest and coming back stronger than ever. It seems to me that SpringSource has been a pivotal player in providing stability to Groovy and making it more popular than ever and Oracle has done the same for JavaFX (deprecating JavaFX Script and embracing standard Java APIs was bold but well played).

Oracle Fusion Application Development

I was able to attend Ann Horton's presentation "Web Development Techniques from an Oracle Fusion Applications Developer." Ann's presentation was filled with screen snapshots, making it easy to see how to use the graphical-based tools to build Oracle Fusion Applications and use Oracle Fusion Middleware. I don't have any experience with Oracle Applications, but a lot of people do. Although I probably won't have the opportunity to work with them anytime soon, I like to see what other technologies are out there and enjoyed seeing a different way of developing applications. As is the case with much of the software development that occurs, Oracle provides tools that make much of the creation drag-and-drop and selecting things with the mouse.

Ann described "Oracle Fusion Applications Suite" as the "next generation of Oracle Applications" and added that "Fusion" implies integration of multiple products "under a common umbrella and one look and feel." Ann showed via numerous screen captures (often annotated with arrows, underlines, or other markings to provide focus) how to build up an application using Oracle Fusion Applications Suite.

One of the things I like to do at a technical conference is find out what others are using for tooling. Ann mentioned that thousands of developers have worked on Oracle Fusion Applications Suite and that they have used tools such as ade (Application Development Environment), JUnit, Selenium, OATS, and JAudit in their work. I thought it was interesting that JSP and JSF fragments (.jspx and .jsff files) were shown in the presentation.

Ann talked about Fusion developers using and providing "Fusion Guidelines, Standards, and Patterns" (GPS). More details about the Oracle Fusion Applications can be found in Oracle Fusion Applications Developer's Guide.

Oracle ADF and Mobile Development

Until I read the abstracts for this conference, I had not even realized that Oracle ADF can be used to develop applications for iOS and Android devices, but the subject of Oracle ADF Mobile was a popular one at the conference. The main page for Oracle ADF Mobile describes it like this:

Oracle ADF Mobile is an HTML5 and Java mobile development framework that enables developers to build and extend enterprise applications for iOS and Android from a single code base. Based on a hybrid mobile architecture, ADF Mobile supports access to native device services, enables offline applications and protects enterprise investments from future technology shifts.

The Oracle ADF Mobile FAQ states that Oracle ADF Mobile is licensed "as part of the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF)" and adds that "Oracle ADF can be licensed either as 'Oracle Application Development Framework and TopLink' item on the technology price list, or as part of the Oracle WebLogic licenses." The FAQ also addresses device support: "Both iOS (5.x and above) and Android (2.3.x and above) devices are supported. Furthermore, both the tablet and smart phones running these mobile operating systems are supported."

One of the audience members asked me how using JavaFX differed from using Oracle ADF Mobile and licensing is obviously one of the major differences.

Other Blog Posts on RMOUG Training Days 2013

• Galo Balda's Blog: RMOUG Training Days 2013
• Oracle SQL Tuning Tools and Tips: RMOUG Training Days February 11 (day 1)
• RMOUG Training Days February 13 (day 3)
• Oracle Data Warrior: RMOUG Training Days 2013 – OTN Lab Day
• Oracle Data Warrior: RMOUG Training Days 2013 – Day 1
• Oracle Data Warrior: RMOUG Training Days 2013 – Day 2
• Martin Widlake's Yet Another Oracle Blog: RMOUG – Here I Come
• RMOUG Training Days 2013 - Denver Colorado
• Arup Nanda: My Sessions in RMOUG 2013

Conclusion

I would have liked to attend more sessions at RMOUG Training Days 2013, but enjoyed the brief time I was able to spend there this year. It was good to see people I've known for a number of years and to meet new people. It is always good to remember that there is much more to software development than the relatively narrow view one can get when working in the same circles and communities all the time.

RMOUG Training Days 2013 Presentations Announced: A Mobile Emphasis

The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) has announced the presentations to be given at Training Days 2013. As shown on that page, I will be presenting "Charting Oracle Database Data with JavaFX and Groovy." The abstract for my presentation as shown on the conference materials is shown next:

JavaFX 2.x makes generation and display of data-powered charts powerful and straightforward. JavaFX’s simple APIs allow data sets to be used to create numerous types of charts including pie charts, bar charts, line charts, area charts, bubble charts, and more. JavaFX also supports dynamic charts that are automatically updated when the underlying data changes. With JavaFX poised to become part of Java SE, it is destined to be a standardized technology that is readily available in many environments.

Groovy is a dynamic scripting language that also runs on the JVM and can be used to write concise but powerful scripts. Groovy makes retrieving data from a database relatively painless and is much easier to use than even JDBC. Groovy’s XML parsing is also similarly easy to use and makes Groovy an ideal language for parsing XML to generate charts. JavaFX and Groovy together make it easy to write simple scripts that easily create visually impressive charting results. JavaFX and Groovy can be used with other Java/JVM-based libraries to generate these charts in various medium from websites to desktop clients to PDFs.

I also intend to discuss in this presentation an obvious topic when discussing use of JavaFX and Groovy together: GroovyFX.

One of the major themes of this year's RMOUG Training Days 2013 conference appears to be developing mobile applications, either with Oracle Application Express (APEX) or with Oracle ADF Mobile. The main Oracle web page on Oracle ADF Mobile describes it as "an HTML5 and Java mobile development framework that enables developers to build and extend enterprise applications for iOS and Android from a single code base" and is "based on a hybrid mobile architecture" and "supports access to native device services." The following are some of the sessions at RMOUG Training Days 2013 that are obviously covering mobile application development with Oracle ADF Mobile or with APEX.

• Mobile Integration through Oracle Technologies
  • Objectives and outline indicate this session will cover general mobile development with Oracle technologies.
  • Jordan Braunstein, Visual Integrator Consulting
• Oracle ADF – The No Slides Overview
  • "See how far you can get with Oracle ADF in one hour of building web and mobile applications."
  • Shay Shmeltzer, Oracle Corporation
• Develop Compelling On-Device Mobile Apps – The Simpler Way
  • "This session will discuss and demonstrate developing an on-device mobile application using the technologies and tools you are familiar with: JDeveloper, Java, and ADF Mobile, without writing a single line of device-native code. You can deploy this single code base to both iOS and Android-based devices."
  • Joe Huang, Oracle Corporation
• ADF Mobile eCourse Pilot
  • "Through interactive presentation and hands-on exercises, you’ll examine the principles to consider when designing mobile applications, as well as understand the road map for developing them."
  • Lynn Munsinger, Oracle Corporation
• Bring Your iPads! (Because You’re Gonna Build a Mobile APEX App in One Hour!)
  • "Oracle Application Express integrates very easily with JQuery Mobile and this combination can be used to create mobile applications that are supported on a wide range of mobile devices relatively simple."
  • Chris Ostrowski, Avout
• Building Mobile Applications with Oracle Application Express
  • "This session provides an overview of the basics of jQuery mobile, explains how it is integrated with Oracle Application Express, and discusses how customers can quickly build mobile web applications and extend their existing Oracle Application Express applications with mobile capabilities."
  • David Peake, Oracle Corporation

RMOUG Training Days 2013 looks to have a plethora of database-related presentations as normal, but several of them are focused on MySQL as well as the Oracle database. I will likely try to attend as many of the mobile application development sessions as I can and look forward to presenting on generating charts for data using JavaFX and Groovy.

RMOUG Training Days 2013 will be held 11-13 February 2012 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.

Questions at My RMOUG Training Days 2012 Presentation on JavaFX 2

I presented "JavaFX 2.0: Java in the Rich Internet Application Space" at RMOUG Training Days 2012 earlier this week. After many years of presenting at technical conferences, I've decided that one of the best indicators of how well I did in my presentation is the types of questions I get from attendees. If I get no questions, it is more likely that I've confused, lost, or bored people than that I covered all possible questions. If I get really basic questions asking about things I already covered, it means I either messed that part of the presentation up or that I simply forgot to cover that thoroughly. When I get relevant questions that seem to pick up where my presentation left off or that demonstrate the attendee asking a question to apply what I've presented to an individual situation, I know that I've been able to provide what I had hoped to provide. The questions from attendees at my presentation this week fell into that last category. They were excellent questions.

In this post, I repeat (paraphrase) the questions (thanks Bill for recording them!) I was asked and provide answers to those questions. In most cases, I answer here pretty much the same way that I answered at the presentation (but with links here). One exception is my answer to the question about JavaFX 3D support, which has much more information provided in the answer in this post than I could provide at the presentation.

Q: What does JavaFX have for layout managers related to Swing and CSS?

One of the points I made in my presentation is that JavaFX 2 does a nice job of supporting industry standards such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). An insightful attendee asked the question of whether JavaFX 2 uses Swing-like layout managers for layout or uses CSS for layout. My answer was that I had mostly seen (and had only used) JavaFX 2's layout panes for layout and I described these as akin to Swing's layout managers. I added that I have typically seen CSS used in JavaFX 2 applications for styling elements more than for layout purposes. CSS can be used to style many elements of the scene graph including nodes and even layouts. CSS can affect the layout panes by styling things such as padding and borders.

The document Working With Layouts in JavaFX (PDF) provides a nice introduction to JavaFX 2 layout techniques. JavaFX2.0 Layout: A Class Tour is another nice introduction to layout in JavaFX 2. Skinning JavaFX Applications with CSS (PDF) is a nice introduction to using CSS with JavaFX 2.

Q: What Does JavaFX Provide for Database Access?

With hindsight, I probably should have addressed JavaFX in context of database access at a conference that is heavily oriented to the Oracle Database. I suggested that because JavaFX is now "pure Java," it can easily be used with JDBC, favorite Java ORM tools (including JPA implementations), or other database-access goodies in alternative JVM languages such as Groovy.

I mentioned that the JavaFX community appears to be growing and its ecosystem is growing rapidly. I stated that I had just read this week about DataFX, "a project that intends to make retrieving, massaging, populating, viewing, and editing data in JavaFX UI controls easier." Although I have not used DataFX (currently at version 0.0.5), this may be something of interest for those wanting easier integration of data sources and JavaFX UI controls. The JavaOne 2011 slides for JavaFX Datasources: Getting Real-World Data into JavaFX Controls provide introductory details regarding DataFX.

Q: Will JavaFX become incorporated into ADF?

This question reminded my of a question that I too have had. Although I did not specifically wonder if Oracle would incorporate JavaFX into their Application Developer Framework, I have wondered if Oracle would incorporate JavaFX 2 into their products in general (believe they will) and into NetBeans (and NetBeans Rich Client Platform) in particular (less certain of this). I responded as such and said that I could only speculate, but that I hoped that they would incorporate JavaFX and gradually replace components that are heavily Swing-based with JavaFX. Given the statements at JavaOne 2011 regarding JavaFX essentially replacing Swing as the client-side UI technology, this would seem logical. It will obviously take quite some time to make this happen.

The post Oracle ADF and JavaFX demonstrates running "a JavaFX applet within an ADF application."

Q: Is there any out-of-box support for JavaFX 3D?

I mentioned in my slides that JavaFX 2 provides built-in and customizable 2D shapes. In response to the question related to JavaFX 2's 3D support, I responded that I wasn't aware of any existing JavaFX 2 API support for 3D graphics.

It appears that support for "3D primitives" has been anticipated for JavaFX 2.1. A Richard Bair podcast (Java Spotlight Episode 16) provides more information on the need to have Java 7 for applet (plugin) delivery changes to support Prism and 3D more fully. Under the section titled "New Features Proposed for JavaFX," the JavaFX 2 Roadmap has a sub-section called "3D Graphics Support" that states, "JavaFX will feature support for 3D graphics that can be leveraged for modern forms of data visualization and advanced user experience."

In addition, there are some other common practices for achieving 3D effects in JavaFX 2.0. These include use of Java 3D and using 2D shapes with creative animation to simulate 3D effects. Other good online resources related to JavaFX and 3D support (which JavaFX 1.x had) include 3D with JavaFX, Java 3D™ meets JavaFX™, 3D Capabilities in JavaFX 1.3 Release, JavaFX 2.0 for 3D Website, and Early reports on JavaFX 2 are in.

More JavaFX 2 Recent News

Because this is a JavaFX-oriented post, it seems appropriate to include references to some new online JavaFX content. Jonathan Giles announced that More of the JavaFX Scenegraph open sourced and he references specifically javafx-ui-common in the OpenJFX project.

The Apress page for the forthcoming book Pro JavaFX 2: A Definitive Guide to Rich Clients with Java Technology now states the publication date of this book as 7 March 2012. The Java-Buddy blog is featuring a series of numerous blog posts with simple JavaFX 2.0 examples and demonstrations.

Conclusion

I appreciated the great questions from attendees at my JavaFX 2 presentation at RMOUG Training Days 2012. They were such great questions that I thought it worth writing this post to summarize those questions and my best answers for those questions. I'm looking forward to the imminent release of Pro JavaFX 2 and am happy to see more of JavaFX open sourced and to see more JavaFX code examples online.

RMOUG Training Days 2012 Schedule Available

RMOUG Training Days 2012 will be held February 14-16, 2012, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. The RMOUG web site has many details about the conference including a high-level agenda, Schedule-at-a-Glance, list of presenters, and list of sessions.

In what has become a recent tradition, the first afternoon of Tuesday, February 14, features University Sessions. Although these University Sessions require a separate fee beyond the normal conference registration price, Oracle is offering a free Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Developer Day for the full day on Tuesday, February 14. They are offering multiple sessions including presentations on the "Java Track" such as "Simpler Enterprise Java Development with Oracle" and "Developing with JDBC, UCP, and Java in the Database." Other tracks include Oracle Application Express Track, Database Development Track, and .NET Track.

The main technical sessions at RMOUG Training Days 2012 occur on Wednesday and Thursday, February 15-16. There appears to be up to 13 sessions offered in each time slot for lots of choice in what to attend. Below is a list of some of the sessions that seem particularly interesting to me.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

• "MySQL Security Essentials" (Ronald Bradford, Session 1)
• "Leveraging the Full Power of the Oracle XML DB Repository" (Mark Drake, Session 2)
• "Oracle XML Database - Design Concepts for XML Applications that Will Perform!" (Marco Gralike , Session 3)
• "End-to-End Java: Decide When to Adopt Java in the Database and Best Practices" (Kuassi Mensah, Session 3)
• "Beyond SQL: The No SQL and Not Only SQL Movements" (Marshall Presser, Session 5)
• "Difficult Decisions" (Steven Wille, Session 6)

Thursday, February 16, 2012

• "How Cloud Computing will Change your Career, Life, and Bedtime Routine" (Jordan Braunstein, Session 7)
• "Service Oriented Architecture: How it Works and How to Implement it Successfully" (Robert Mason, Session 7)
• "Things Developers Wish Managers Knew and Managers Wish Developers Knew" (Bill Jackson, Session 8)
• "JavaFX 2.0: Java in the Rich Internet Application Space" (Dustin Marx, Session 9)
• "Ruby and Oracle. You’re Going to Like the Way it Makes You Code" (George Thrower, Session 9)
• "NoSQL Deep Dive" (Gwen Shapira, Session 10)
• "Forms to Struts 2, Spring and Hibernate: Value & Gotchas" (Jigar Parsana, Session 11)

With 13 concurrent sessions offered in each of the 11 sessions slots, there are nearly 150 presentations to see at RMOUG Training Days 2012 along with the keynote presentation. Understandably, many of them cover database-oriented, DBA-oriented, and Oracle-oriented topics such as Oracle EBS R12, Oracle Exalogic, high availability, joins, indexes, SQL, RAC, TOAD, replication, performance, optimization, Fusion, and so forth.

Speaking at RMOUG Training Days 2012

The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) has announced that the keynote speaker at RMOUG Training Days 2012 will be Cary Millsap of Method R Consulting. RMOUG Training Days 2012 are scheduled for 14-16 February 2012 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.

I will be speaking at this conference. I will be sole presenter of "JavaFX 2.0: Java in the Rich Internet Application Space" and will be a co-presenter of "Things Developers Wish Managers Knew and Managers Wish Developers Knew." I look forward to returning to the Colorado Convention Center for another edition of RMOUG Training Days.

Summer 2011 Edition of RMOUG Newsletter

I received a copy of the Summer 2011 edition of the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) newsletter SQL>Update last week. In this post, I highlight a few items that stood out to me from this edition. In a sign of the times, this may be the issue with the most articles available online that I have ever seen. Although RMOUG does not make the newsletter's articles available online, many of the articles' authors have done so in this case.


RMOUG Training Days 2012

The back cover of the newsletter features a full-page advertisement for RMOUG Training Days 2012. The annual conference is scheduled for February 14-16, 2012, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. The advertisement states that "early registration begins in November" and that "more information is coming soon."


Expanding Focus at RMOUG

In his "From the President" column, RMOUG President Tim Gorman writes:

"RMOUG needs to reach new audiences, spread our continuing education message through newer mediums, explore the effectiveness of social networking technology, and strive more to reach young and upcoming colleagues around us. Also, as the scope of Oracle Corporation has expanded to new databases, into hardware, new applications, and broader technologies, clearly RMOUG needs to expand beyond our core competencies as well."

I joined RMOUG in 2000 in conjunction with attending RMOUG Training Days 2000, the first edition of this conference that I attended. I also attended RMOUG Training Days 2001 and then have presented in some capacity at each RMOUG Training Days edition since then. Although it's certainly true that RMOUG and its Training Days conference are dominated by DBAs and developers largely tied to Oracle-specific products, it is also true that RMOUG has not entirely limited itself to these areas. There's no better evidence than this than the fact that they've accepted my abstracts for RMOUG Training Days presentations for a wide variety of topics including Java, Enterprise Java, Ruby on Rails, Apache POI, XQuery, Flex, HTML 5, REST, Groovy, XSL-FO, SVG, and Ajax.

Various forces (struggling economy, reduced IT funding, overlapping technologies, etc.) have led many of us to take on tasks from a variety of disciplines. Many developers must learn basic database administration and scripting skills and many DBAs must learn basic development and scripting skills. I agree with Gorman's assertion that the best way for RMOUG to continue to appeal to a younger generation and to a wider audience is to embrace some new approaches and new topics. I think RMOUG's tried to do this for some time and expect that this will continue into the future, perhaps a little more aggressively.


Passwords are Case Sensitive in Oracle Database 11g

Dan Hotka's single-page article "A Change for Oracle 11: Case Sensitive Passwords!" discusses the change in Oracle Database 11g to support case sensitive passwords. Hotka shows how to determine in SQL*Plus (or SQL Developer) if the case sensitive password option is turned on using the SHOW PARAMETER command on SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON. He also provides a query DBAs can run to see the PASSWORD_VERSIONS for each user.

Hotka points out that some administrators in certain situations may not want case sensitive passwords. He shows how to run orapwd from the operating system command line followed by use of ALTER SYSTEM to set the SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON parameter to FALSE. These steps disable case sensitive passwords, returning behavior to that which existed before Oracle Database 11g.

Hotka's blog, Dan Hotka Blog, features the post Oracle 11g Case Sensitive Passwords: A Change for Oracle 11, which is essentially the same content as the RMOUG SQL>Update article. This is obviously good news for those who don't have access to the printed newsletter, but it's even nice for those of us with the printed newsletter because it means it is available online to us when we don't have the newsletter with us.


Migrating the SQL Management Base

Jed Walker's article "Making Plans with Oracle 11g And Not Leaving Them Behind" discusses the Oracle Database 11g component called SQL Management Base (SMB). Walker discusses using SMB to achieve optimal query performance and then focuses on migrating these stored plans when necessary. Here is text from his introduction:

Starting with Oracle 11g the database now has a component called the SQL Management Base (SMB). The SQL Management Base contains SQL Plan baselines. SQL Plan Baselines are a known plan for a given SQL statement. Oracle stores these plans and then uses them to ensure optimal query performance. SQL Plan Baselines often significantly improve query performance without making any changes to your schema or database configuration. Once you’ve got these performance improving plans stored in the SMB you don’t want to leave them behind. The purpose of this paper is to point out some situations when you would want to migrate your SMB and how to do it.

It appears that this article is available in its entirety in PDF format on Walker's blog in the Papers section.


Oracle Database Write Consistency

Ruslan Dautkhanov begins his article "Oracle's Write Consistency: Side Effects for Applications" with this introduction:

Write consistency is barely covered in official Oracle documentation, though it can have serious impacts to applications. Understanding what issues might be lurking, and some rather puzzling behavior to those not acquainted with write consistency behavior, might provide some insight when architecting a system.

After briefly reviewing read consistency, Dautkhanov focuses the remainder of the article on write consistency in the Oracle Database. Toward the end of the article, he lists the effects Oracle's write consistency approach might have on applications.

Dautkhanov has made a PDF copy of this article available online in his blog post Oracle's Write Consistency. Dautkhanov has also provided links to source code that accompanies the article and references the Ask Tom post on write consistency.


Cloud Integration Checklist

Jordan Braunstein has written two articles in this edition of the RMOUG newsletter. The first is called "The Essential Cloud Integration Checklist." This article approaches Cloud Computing from a very high level and "explores the more critical characteristics of integrating to and from the cloud, and how to ensure your solution is stable, scalable, and interoperable." Braunstein focuses on several aspects of cloud integration such as security, interoperability, presentation, federated search, functionality/usability, and standards before listing some "leading practices." Braunstein has made this article available on his "SOA Today" blog as post The Essential Cloud Integration Checklist.


IT Isn't Dead

Jordan Braunstein begins his second article in this edition of the RMOUG newsletter (called "IT Isn't Dead: 100% Guaranteed Approach to Keep Your CEO Happy") with the statement, "If there is one constant with IT, it is the guarantee of change." As part of this one-page article, Braunstein lists "IT trends that every company should be considering in order to keep their company strategically aligned for high value gains." Braunstein has made this article available online as a blog post: IT Isn't Dead. 100% Guaranteed Approach to Keep your CEO Happy.

By the way, if you're a software architect or like to make fun of software architects, then you should check out Braunstein's post Software Architect Proverbs.


IT Value

Bill Wimsatt's article "IT Investment Management: Get the Value from IT Projects" includes an abstract that starts with a definition of investment: "Investment is about applying resources to return higher value than the initial resource outlay." One of the sentences from this article that I found most interesting is: "I would posit that many projects are failures in the eyes of the investors regardless of whether the project was on time or on budget." He also writes, "The investment must be for business purpose that is used to increase company revenue, market share and profit (via reduced expenses)." This article is available online.


People of RMOUG

This edition of the RMOUG newsletter also featured Lisa Collett in the "RMOUG Member Focus" and Ron Bich in the "RMOUG Board Focus." There are brief biographies also provided for new RMOUG Board Members John Jeunnette and Kellyn Pot'vin.

RMOUG Training Days 2011: First Day

Today was the first day of the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) Training Days 2011 regular sessions (there were half-day University Sessions yesterday with a much smaller overall participation level for these focused presentations). It was announced at lunch that this is the twentieth edition of RMOUG Training Days. They asked who was attending for the first time (a small number of hands responded to this), who had attended at least three times (greater number of hands raised), and who had attended five times, ten times, fifteen times, and all twenty times. Of the eight or so people at my table, at least four of us had attended more than ten editions of this conference. For me, this is my twelfth time attending and tenth year of presenting.

It is always satisfying to see a decent number of people show enough interest in a topic and provided abstract to attend one's presentation. Both my 90-minute Groovy presentation ("Groovier Java Scripting") and my 30-minute HTML5 presentation ("A First Look at HTML5") were relatively well attended with somewhere between 40 and 60 people in attendance in each.

There are three ways that I typically observe how interesting one of my presentations is to the general audience. The first is the obvious observation of what percentage of the audience is sleeping, obviously day dreaming, or otherwise obviously retreated to their happy place. I didn't seem to see any more people sleeping or fighting sleep than normal in either presentation and I didn't fall asleep, so things seemed to go well from that perspective.

The second measurement is the percentage of people who leave early. You can always expect a small number of people to leave as they realize a presentation or its topic is not what they were looking for or at the level they were looking for. This is especially true of longer presentations where people are more likely to abandon ship if they think they are in it for the long haul and just cannot stand the idea of that. There weren't many who left either presentation and I chose to stay the entire time, so I believe things also went well from this perspective.

The third measurement is the number and types of questions asked. I have been especially impressed with the insightful questions asked at RMOUG Training Days in recent years. These questions improve the overall value of the presentation because the answers either allow me to emphasize small points I made or thought I made or to cover points I had wanted to make but had forgotten to make. The content of the questions tells me if the audience is understanding the points I am trying to make. Today's questions in both sessions were all excellent and relative and implied to me that at least those asking the questions were hearing and understanding the implications of what I was talking about.

Both audiences at today's presentations of mine were outstanding and highly participative. Preparing for these presentations requires significant time and effort and it is more motivating for me to invest that time and energy when I have such great audiences who seem to appreciate the effort and who are actively involved. I learn much for preparing these presentations and that is a big motivator for doing so, but it is nice to feel that I may be contributing to the general good as well.

There were some changes in Training Days this year. One noticeable change was the different portion of the Colorado Convention Center in which the conference was held this year. Another change was no CD provided with presentations and papers (these are downloaded from RMOUG's Schedule Builder instead). I remember the years when we had voluminous bound books containing the white papers and it is interesting to see how far we've come.

Several other posts about RMOUG Training Days 2011 have started appearing. Kenneth Lee talks about a university session in RMOUG – First University Session. Shay Shmeltzer summarizes the presentations at Training Days 2011 related to Oracle ADF in the post ADF Sessions at RMOUG This Week. I expect to see at least a few more posts regarding this conference over the next few days.

RMOUG Training Days 2011 Four Weeks Away

I will be presenting "Groovier Java Scripting" and "A First Look at HTML5" at Rocky Mountain Oracle User Group's (RMOUG's) Training Days 2011 four weeks from today. I've blogged quite a bit on HTML5 and Groovy and many of those posts were based on examples I was preparing for my RMOUG Training Days 2011 presentations. I'm looking forward to giving these two presentations.

I expect to see several more blog posts on RMOUG Training Days 2011 between now and the end of the actual conference. There are already several interesting posts related to this conference. Cary Millsap has posted New Paper 'Mastering Performance with Extended SQL Trace' in which he includes a link to download this paper which he refers to as "a 15-page update to chapter 5 of Optimizing Oracle Performance."

In Back on the speaking circuit - RMOUG Training Days 2011, James F. Koopmann states that it has been nearly five years since his last presentation, but he will be presenting "The Diagnostic World Has Changed; Using Oracle's Automatic Diagnostic Repository Command Interface to Effectively View and Manage Diagnostic Information" at RMOUG Training Days 2011.

TUSC is associated with eight presentations at Training Days 2011. Their page with information about the conference and the titles and summaries of their presentations also states that Training Days is "the largest regional user group conference in the US" and "is the place to network with local Oracle professionals and talk with internationally renowned Oracle experts." I'll also be there.

RMOUG Training Days 2011 is being held 15-17 February 2011 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.

MySQL and Other Topics in RMOUG SQL>Update Winter 2010 Edition

The Winter 2010 edition of RMOUG SQL>Update (the newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group) arrived this week. It had several interesting articles that I'll reference here. As usual, the newsletter was largely oriented toward database administration, but I still found some things of interest to developers.

Peggy King's "From the President" column provided a summary of RMOUG happenings in 2010. About Training Days 2010, King states, "Over eighty speakers from RMOUG and around the world came together to present what has become known as one of the top Oracle conferences." I presented at RMOUG Training Days 2010 on REST and Groovy and will be presenting on Groovy and HTML5 at RMOUG Training Days 2011 next month.

King also states in her column that over 25 Oracle Aces/Ace Directors attended Training Days 2010 and that 2010's edition was the first to feature an Oracle Ace Panel. Peggy also highlighted RMOUG's three quarterly training meetings, the RMOUG newsletter SQL>Update, and other RMOUG events in 2010.

Technical articles featured in the Winter 2010 edition of RMOUG SQL>Update include Steven Feuerstein's "Guarantee Application Success." A "PL/SQL Evangelist for Quest Software since January 2001," Feuerstein starts his article with these two sentences:

The lawyers at Quest Software asked me to clarify something right up front: using our software will not guarantee that you will be successful. Having said that, I do believe that if you follow the ideas in this paper and my presentation you are likely to improve the chances of delivering a successful application.

The presentation referenced in that quote is probably the Oracle OpenWorld 2010 presentation Guarantee Application Success and is probably related to Guarantee Application Success with the Toad Development Suite. In the article, Feuerstein sets up criteria that an application must be correct, fast enough, and maintainable and then goes into the general high-level approaches he believes should be followed to achieve these desirable criteria. Although PL/SQL is mentioned specifically, most of these ideas apply to development in any language.

John Krahulec's "Enterprise Social Networking: It's Now Ready for the Workplace" begins with an introduction to "Enterprise Social Networking." Krahulec states that "Enterprise Social Networking connects People to People and People to Information." He writes about the merits of social networking and how to deliver those merits to the enterprise. He also discusses the obstacles to adoption of enterprise social networking and discusses use of an Oracle database in application of an enterprise social network. I am interested to see if Enterprise Social Networking continues to grow or if it will fizzle out because of various issues and concerns.

In "ASM - The Next Generation," Tim Mishek looks at the current state of Automatic Storage Management. After describing ASM Dynamic Volume Manager, ASM Clustered File System, ASM Configuration Assistant (asmca), ASM Command Line Interface (ASMCMD), and other issues related to ASM, Mishek concludes, "Oracle has really done it right. Not only is ASM an absolute necessity for database clustering technologies, but is now a better option for general database storage. ... ASM has become a full featured storage solution."

The most interesting article in this edition of the newsletter for me is the single page article "Four Things to Know about MySQL" by Benjamin Wood. During Oracle's acquisition of Sun and its MySQL assets, some were concerned that Oracle only wanted MySQL to kill it. Several Oracle actions since the acquisition have proven otherwise. This article on MySQL by an Oracle Sales Consultant in a magazine heavily targeted at Oracle database administrators is further evidence that Oracle plans to continue supporting and providing MySQL. Wood provides explanation for his "four things," but I only list the four items here (see page 20 of the newsletter for the explanations). The four things Wood states we should know about MySQL follow:

1. MySQL is Now an Oracle Product
2. MySQL Powers the High Volume Web
3. MySQL Powers Critical Infrastructure
4. Oracle 11g and MySQL Work Together

Wood ends his article by explaining how to acquire MySQL from edelivery.oracle.com. He concludes, "Leverage your Oracle knowledge and get started with the world's most popular open source database -- now an Oracle product!"

Dan Hotka is the subject of the "RMOUG Member Focus" column. It is interesting to read about the technology advancements he has seen in his career. It is also interesting to read about the various twists in his career that I believe most of us experience if we stay in the technology-oriented careers long enough.

Heidi Kuhn is the subject of the "RMOUG Board Focus" column. As the RMOUG Administrative Assistant, Kuhn has access to interesting statistical information about RMOUG. Her column includes pie charts indicating the membership types in RMOUG ("Individuals" dominate with 77% of the memberships) and the percentage of RMOUG members associated with a company (67% associated with a company, 32% individual, and 1% students). Perhaps most interesting of all is the line chart showing RMOUG membership from 1998 through 2010. Current numbers (less than 1000 members) are the lowest on the chart and the peak was in the early 2000s (~2000 members).

Although Oracle now owns many products outside of the Oracle database, I don't think there's any question that RMOUG is still primarily made up of database administrators and focused on database administration. That being stated, RMOUG does work to have presentations at Training Days that are not database related (mine are typically good examples of this) and to address other technology areas as well. Although I'm not a DBA and have no desire to become one, I do find it advantageous to know at least a little about the database.

RMOUG Training Days 2011 Schedule-At-A-Glance Available

RMOUG has made the first edition of their Training Days 2011 Schedule-At-A-Glance available online. There are numerous interesting abstracts highlighted in this schedule. My two presentations are both scheduled for the first day and this is unlikely to change because of their respective durations. There is only one 30-minute slot and one 90-minute slot and I have one presentation in each of these slots. The typical RMOUG Training Days presentation slot is 60 minutes. Before highlighting some of the abstracts that look particularly interesting to me, I'll briefly summarize my own presentation abstracts.



Groovier Java Scripting
Session 2 (Wednesday, 16 February 2011, 10:30 am to noon, Room 406)

Groovy is a dynamic language that runs in the Java Virtual Machine and has full access to the Java SDK as well as third-party Java libraries and frameworks. Groovy supports most Java syntax as-is, but provides an even more concise syntax that makes it more suitable for scripting. Groovy can be run directly without explicit compilation and enjoys many other script-friendly benefits.

This presentation expands on topics discussed at RMOUG Training Days 2010 in the presentation "Applied Groovy: Scripting for Java Development." The presentation briefly summarizes select basic features and syntax of Groovy, advantages of using Groovy as a scripting language, and demonstrates how to use Groovy to improve building, developing, and testing Java-based applications. The presentation will emphasize how easy it is to write and parse XML with Groovy and how easy it is to manipulate database content with Groovy.

Although the basics of Groovy will be covered initially in the presentation for those who have not used Groovy previously, most of the syntax and other features covered in this presentation will be presented in conjunction with the use of Groovy in building, maintaining, and testing applications for the Java platform.

A First Look at HTML5: 30-Minute Quick Tip

Session 4 (Wednesday, 16 February 2011, 2:45 pm to 3:15 pm)

HTML5 is the the forthcoming standard in hypertext markup for the modern web. Although work on HTML5 has been ongoing for several years, interest and support for HTML5 has increased rapidly in recent months. An example of this is the JavaOne 2010 announcement that JavaFX 2.0 will provide HTML5 support. This short presentation will describe some of the most exciting features of HTML5. The presentation also covers the reasons that HTML5 is important and describes some of its limitations and obstacles to adoption. Finally, HTML5 features already supported in three popular modern web browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome) will be demonstrated.

There are numerous other abstracts that appeal to my interests. I probably won't attend the Tuesday University Sessions, but Brad Brown's Building Enterprise Apps for the Android Platform looks interesting. In his abstract, Brown states something that I've felt and been telling people as well:

I liken Android to the 'IBM PC' of the mobile world. Apple came out with a great OS for the Mac, but it only ran on the Mac. The 'IBM PC' (DOS, which later became Microsoft Windows) was generic and ran on a variety of hardware. Android runs on hundreds of devices today.

Brown's abstract states that this University Session will "discuss how you can write an application for the Android that accesses your corporate data securely. From concept to publishing in the Android market - for sale or for free - private or public."

One disadvantage of my presenting A First Look at HTML5 in the 30-minute Quick Tip presentation slot is that I won't be able to attend Rob Osterburg's presentation Scala: A Concise Introduction through Code, Concepts and Demonstrations. I'm not normally in the habit of recommending attendees attend a presentation at the same time as mine, but I would have liked to attend this session because Rob is a friend and because the topic (Scala) is of significant interest to me. In fact, attendees at my Groovy presentation will likely hear me enthusiastically recommend his session on another JVM-based programming language.

Gwen Shapira (blog) has an abstract discussing another topic of high interest to me: NoSQL (see my coverage of a JavaOne 2010 presentation on NoSQL). Her presentation is called NoSQL Deep Dive and her abstract summarizes NoSQL: "NoSQL is a general name for a new type of database - One that throws away the relational model in favor of better scalability."

Another abstract title that stood out to me as I scanned the Schedule-At-A-Glance is Introduction to Mobile Application Development. This abstract states that the presentation will "cover introduction, approach, and leading practices for building applications in a mobile platform" and will provide an iPhone example.

The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group is deeply rooted in Oracle database technology and this year's slate of presentations, like most years before, provides numerous in-depth database-heavy topics. Similarly, it is not surprising that many Oracle tools received focused coverage in RMOUG Training Days 2011 presentations. The schedule is subject to change (one presentation still needs a title!), but it is interesting to start planning what I will attend.

RMOUG Training Days 2011 will be held February 15-17, 2011 (15 February is University Sessions) at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. The Colorado Convention Center has a Flash-based interactive floor map available for seeing where the rooms for each session are located.

Highlights of RMOUG SQL>Update Fall 2010 Newsletter

I received a copy of the Fall 2010 edition of the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group newsletter (RMOUG SQL>Update) this week and summarize some of its highlights here. The cover of this edition is perfect for a Fall/Autumn edition and features a photograph (by Lisa Collett) of aspen trees whose leaves have already turned yellow.

This edition of the RMOUG newsletter has several references to Training Days 2011. In her "From the President" column, RMOUG President Peggy King writes about the upcoming RMOUG Training Days 2011 and mentions that this conference will be held February 15-17, 2011, at the Colorado Convention Center. She states that there was an "overwhelming response to this year's call for papers" that "promises to continue the long standing RMOUG tradition of providing a conference packed full of exceptional presentations and numerous opportunities to share knowledge and hear the latest information about product development."  She adds, "So look for the Training Days 2011 Preliminary Conference agenda to be posted to the RMOUG website (www.rmoug.org) around the middle of November." Peggy states (and some advertisements in the newsletter reaffirm) that early registration for RMOUG Training Days 2011 will be available in early November.

RMOUG Training Days 2011 is also mentioned in Brad Blake's summary of Oracle OpenWorld 2010. He compares Oracle OpenWorld and RMOUG Training Days and concludes that RMOUG Training Days "is always a much better 'bang for the buck'!" in terms of providing "good, technical session[s]" that provide "actual hands-on tips and tricks of how to do things -- something you can take back to the office and USE."

There is more than one advertisement for Training Days 2011 in this edition, but the largest and most obvious is on the back cover. This advertisement includes the dates (15-17 February 2011) and the location (Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado) and states that early registration will open November 4, 2010, and that early registration ends January 12, 2011.

RMOUG Training Days 2011 is not the only RMOUG training-related event coming up in the relatively near future. Page 5 of this Fall 2010 newsletter has an advertisement for the Fall Quarterly Education Workshop to be held on 19 November 2010. The advertisement on page 31 talks about the "next Quarterly Education Workshop in August at the Regis Science Ampitheatre," but it appears to me that that website should be checked for confirmation on the location.

In "MR Trace: An Interview with Cary Millsap of Method R," Cary Millsap answers a set of questions about Method R's offerings. Millsap talks about Method R Trace, a platform-independent Java-based extension of Oracle SQL Developer. Millsap describes this product's "purpose in life": "to completely eliminate all of the distractions associated with getting your hands on perfectly scoped Oracle extended SQL trace data." Millsap goes onto say that Method R Trace is designed for and targeted at software developers. He also references a 3-minute YouTube video on using this product and references his blog post on MR Trace's new file delete function. Finally, Millsap introduces "the best-kept secret in our company": MR Tools Suite. This suite includes three tools: mrls, mrnl, and mrskew. This article was unquestionably heavy on marketing and sales, but I did find it interesting that MR Trace is developer-focused and the tools do sound useful.

This edition of the newsletter continued two series of articles that began in the Summer 2010 edition of the newsletter. Jed Walker's "Quick Guide to Configuring Oracle 11gR2 Data Guard Physical Standby" had Part 2 covered in this Fall 2010 edition after having Part 1 covered in the Summer 2010 edition. Similarly, Dan Hotka continued his "Oracle Trace Facility" series: the Summer 2010 edition (Part I) focused on TOAD Trace File Analysis and the Fall 2010 edition (Part II) focused on Metalink SQL T (SQLTXPLAIN).

Other technical articles in the Summer 2010 edition of the RMOUG newsletter were Rama Balaji's "Flashback Logs Cleanup Without Downtime" and Kellyn Pedersen's "The CTAS, a.k.a. Processing Data The Jetson's Way." The other technical articles in the Fall 2010 edition of SQL>Update included Sue Harper's "Capture, Model, Design and Generate Using Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler."

The Fall 2010 edition of the RMOUG newsletter had its "RMOUG Board Focus" focused on Tim Gorman. His column is an interesting case study in how what's important is in the eye of the beholder and how we all seem to think whatever we do is most important. I have a difficult time arguing with him that data is extremely valuable. I'm just glad we all can find things we enjoy that are different so we're not all trying to do the same thing. I don't think I could be a DBA for more than a few days without the desperate need to throw myself off the tallest building I could find, but he probably feels similarly about software development. It's good that we don't all want to do the same job. I'm not arguing that data's not valuable; it's just not that interesting!

As I stated previously, the Fall 2010 edition had numerous references to RMOUG Training Days 2011 and the Preliminary Agenda is expected to be available in November.  Ken Lee has announced that his abstract has been accepted for "APEX-O-MATIC – In a Blender with APEX and Web Services."

I was excited to learn this week that the two abstracts I submitted have been accepted. I will be presenting "Groovier Java Scripting" and "A First Look at HTML5." The Groovy presentation will expand on what I presented last year at Training Days 2010 ("Applied Groovy: Scripting for Java Development") on Groovy and provide more concrete examples of scripting with Groovy. The HTML5 presentation will look at what HTML5 offers in several browsers already and promises to offer for future web development. I plan to post the actual abstracts and additional details about my plans for these two presentations in a future post.

RMOUG Training Days 2010/2011 and Canceled JavaOne Presentation

The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) has made the slides from Training Days 2010 available online.  Unfortunately, I made many changes and additions to the slides from my two presentations after the date for submitting them to the conference and neglected to send the updated versions in to be posted.  However, there are numerous other presentations from other presenters available on the presentations summary page.

RMOUG has also sent out an e-mail message calling for abstracts for presenting at RMOUG Training Days 2011.  I snapped a screenshot from that e-mail message to post here:

As this image from the e-mail message indicates, abstracts are due September 22, 2010.  RMOUG Training Days 2011 will be held 15-17 February, 2010, at the Colorado Convention Center.  The call for abstracts states that the conference organizers are "looking for presentations that celebrate the best of the old and the best of the new and emerging technologies."

The page linked to from the Submit link in that e-mail snippet is to the page Call For Papers. 


JavaOne 2010 Session Canceled

I was somewhat disappointed to learn via e-mail last week that a session I was looking forward to at JavaOne 2010 (and that was on my Schedule Builder) had been canceled.  Here is the most relevant snippet from the e-mail message I received:

Dear Oracle OpenWorld, JavaOne, and Oracle Develop Attendee,

We regret to inform you that the following session you are currently
enrolled in has been cancelled and removed from your schedule.

Session ID: S314089
Title: Java and HTML5: Boldly Combine
Date: 9/21/2010
Start Time: 9:30:00 AM

I was really looking forward to this presentation on using Java and HTML5 together.   The good news is that there are numerous sessions that interest me in every time slot.  Also, there are still sessions scheduled for JavaOne related to HTML5 and Java:

• A Lean, RESTful Java Architecture for Building Rich HTML5 Web Applications (S314404)
• The JSF 2.0 and HTML5 Version of Parleys.com  (S313804)

It is not surprising for a conference this size with this many presentations to have a few cancellations, but I always hope that it's presentations I was not going to attend anyway.  In this case, I was definitely planning on attending "Java and HTML5: Boldly Combine."

RMOUG SQL>Update Spring 2010 Highlights

The attractive full-color Spring 2010 edition of the RMOUG SQL>Update newsletter arrived this week and I read several things in it that I felt were worth mentioning in this blog post.  The three technical articles featured in this edition are the second part of Mark Molnar’s “Oracle & Excel – Why Fight It?”, Mark Rittman’s “Integrating Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator for Change Data Capture”, and Dan Hotka’s “Index Quality.”  Besides these three technical articles this edition also features RMOUG
member Bern Bray and RMOUG Board Member Carolyn Fryc.  In the remainder of this post, I highlight some of the things I found most generally interesting in these articles and member highlights.

As is usual with these RMOUG newsletters, the cover of this edition features a photograph of a beautiful Rocky Mountain area scene.  In this case it is a Bern Bray photograph of Rock Cut Bloom in Rocky Mountain National Park.  My family and I try to get to Estes Park, Grand Lake, and Rocky Mountain National Park often and the scene in this photograph is very familiar.  Unfortunately, this beautiful cover does have a typo: it indicates that the GoldenGate/Data Integrator article is by Mark Ritter instead of Mark Rittman.  With all the Marks in this issue, this typo is more understandable.

From a technical standpoint, the articles focusing on RMOUG members are intentionally and not surprisingly typically far less interesting than the technical articles.  Their focus, after all, is more on the “soft skills” than on technical insight.  That being stated, I particularly enjoyed reading a couple of Bern Bray’s comments in his self-written “Member Focus.”  In that, Bray writes, “Like many younger engineers, my early days found me doing technical stuff on my own at night.  It paid off, as I was able to advance my career and choose what I liked to work on.  Several years ago, I started to feel that my life was out of balance.”

Later, in concluding, Bray states his “little nugget of wisdom”: “Work hard during working hours, but at quitting time, put the keyboard down and walk away… You will be a fresher and better worker when you come back in the morning.  Besides, everyone knows that you get your best ideas in the shower.”  I liked these statements because they reflect that there are career advantages to technical work done on one’s own time, but that it is also useful to take a break.  This is my excuse for the less frequent and more intermittent blog posts this summer!

In the second (of two) part of his “Oracle & Excel – Why Fight It?” series, Mark Molnar demonstrates with extensive code samples and screen snapshots how to create flat files of usefully formatted data via Excel and an Oracle database.  In his words, his examples show “how to take data out of the database, via Excel, and produce flat files in the format desired.”  At first reading this, I wondered why one would do such a thing when it is easy to read from a database in a language like Java or Groovy using JDBC and write out flat files.  However, I found the article informative because of its extensive coverage of using Visual Basic with Excel and use of 7-Zip from the command line.  Even if I’d probably solve the problem of the example in this article with a Java-based approach, I enjoyed learning some details of using Visual Basic with Excel and Molnar’s coverage of some low-level details involved in that.  He specifically references the URL
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Visual_Basic/External_Processes as a source of useful details regarding use of Visual Basic with external processes.

Dan Hotka provides a code listing in his article “Index Quality” that contains the source code for a script he calls Index_Info.sql.  According to the “description” included in the script’s comments, this script is an “SQL*Plus script to display Index Statistics in relation to the clustering factor.”  Hotka writes that this script is available on his website and discusses background details of the script and why it’s useful in this article.

I’m significantly more developer-oriented than DBA-oriented, so Rittman’s article on integrating GoldenGate and Data Integrator was largely outside of my core areas of interest.  However, it also meant that I learned plenty from reading the article, even though it was more difficult because I lacked the requisite knowledge in the two products he was demonstrating integrating.  At the end of this article, Rittman states, “For a more
detailed, step-by-step version of this article that also describes the process to set up Oracle GoldenGate on the Microsoft Windows platform, an article is available on my website at: http://www.rittmanmead.com/2010/03/22/configuring-odi-10-1-3-6-to-use-oracle-golden-gate-for-changed-data-capture/”

Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) is mentioned more than once in this edition of the newsletter.  In “RMOUG Board Focus,” Carolyn Fryc writes about her first Oracle OpenWorld (2005) and talks about the focus of that OOW being Fusion (likely a major theme every year since then as well).  Dan Hotka’s training advertisement also mentions that he will be at Oracle OpenWorld September 19-23.  I’ve never attended Oracle OpenWorld, but will likely attend at least portions of it this year when I attend JavaOne 2010 and Oracle Develop 2010 which are being held simultaneously in the same city.

In this blog post, I’ve attempted to outline some facets of the Spring 2010 edition of the RMOUG SQL>Update newsletter that I thought had some general interest.  According to RMOUG President Peggy King’s “From the President” column, RMOUG Training Days 2011 is scheduled for 15-17 February 2011 at the Colorado Convention Center.

RMOUG Training Days 2010: It's A Wrap!

Several blog posts related to Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) Training Days 2010 have started appearing and some of the presenters have made their slides available for download. In this blog post, I collect links to some of those blog posts and presentation slides after briefly summarizing my own experience.

I enjoyed presenting "RESTful Java" and "Applied Groovy: Scripting for Java Development" at this year's (2010) edition of RMOUG Training Days. The audiences for these presentations were small (approximately 10 in the REST presentation and 20 to 30 in the Groovy presentation), but the people in attendance were attentive and asked great questions. I have always believed, and have heard many other speakers also say, that the types of questions from the audience is a good type of feedback on how well the presentation went. Some of the questions were so insightful and useful that I plan to blog on the answers to those questions in future blog posts.

Riyaj Shamsudeen was not able to make the flight to Denver due to illness, but he has made his presentations ("Why Does Optimizer Hate My SQL?" and "Advanced RAC Troubleshooting") available online.

Mike Ault, another speaker, posted Day 1 of RMOUG and Ready for Day 2 at RMOUG. Kellyn Pedersen has blogged about her experience speaking at RMOUG Training Days for the first time in the post RMOUG 2010. Brent Lowe's recap is contained in his blog post RMOUG 2010 Recap.

Mark Rittman summarizes his experiences at his first RMOUG Training Days conference in the blog post OWB, RMOUG and ODTUG in Denver. He mentions that the materials associated with the presentation he and Stewart Bryson gave on "OWB11gR2 New Features for DBAs and Developers" are available on the Rittman Mead Consulting articles page.

It is likely that there will be additional posts on RMOUG Training Days 2010 in the next several days. I'm already looking forward to RMOUG Training Days 2011.

RMOUG Training Days 2010 Presentations Blogs

Several people scheduled to present at Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group Training Days 2010 have started blogging about their presentations. This post is a summary of some of these. The list of presentation summaries is available here.

Ken Lee has blogged about his presentation APEX Moves from the Garage to the Basement in his blog post RMOUG 2010 – February 17 – 18, 2010. Oracle Application Express (APEX) is an Oracle-provided tool for building web applications off of an Oracle database.

Kellyn Pedersen blogs about her upcoming presentation The Power of Parallel in her blog post Presenting at RMOUG 2010!!! This presentation appears to be related to Oracle parallel processing.

Chen Shapira is presenting What Every DBA Should Know About TCP/IP Networks and Analyzing Oracle Performance Using Time Series Models. She references the latter of these in two blog posts: Autocorrelation and Causation and Goodness of Data.

Jože Senegačnik is scheduled to present RMAN Tips and Services - Why Should One Use Them? One of the reasons that I'm a developer rather than a DBA is that the idea of backing up and restoring databases is one of the most boring that I can imagine. However, it is important and Oracle DBAs seem to love presentations related to Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN).

Robert G Freeman mentions his 1/2 day university session in his blog post Creating VMWare and RAC on Windows, Part 2. He is also presenting on RMAN: Advanced RMAN Backup and Recovery.

I expect to see additional blogs from presenters at RMOUG Training Days 2010 as it approaches. Training Days will be held February 17-18 (and 1/2 day University Sessions on February 16) in the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.