RE: RE: Career Advice
Viktor, Ryan - Is what you are experiencing the result of companies moving to open-systems Web-based architectures? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 8:34 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L I agree with Ryan. Pure Oracle jobs aren't hot as they used to be. We are going through this right now. They are planning to bring in a bunch of new developers and splitting a few DBA's into dev. groups, which means we'll become more like software engineers (who can also do DBA stuff). There will be only one Prod. DBA for a zillion systems. They're driving in the direction of bringing in more cross-trained people. They want all-aroind people who know Perl, Java, Oracle etc. The motto has been: If you get hit by a bus, he/she can do it. The more you know, the better. Cross-training all the way. It's like that all-in-one fax/printer/copier thing. And at the same time, the paycheck isn't as it had been either. Viktor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: my biggest concern is the model for development has been changed. The model now is do most development with software engineers and have only a small number of database people. this means less pure oracle jobs. From: DENNIS WILLIAMS Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 02:59:26 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: RE: Career Advice Ryan - Excellent points. I well know the feeling of being tied to Oracle's future. As to Oracle pricing itself out of the market, I would like to make three points: - Pricing is one of the quickest things a vendor can change once it becomes convinced this is hurting it. On the other hand, I've seen software vendors that stopped investing in new development. They aren't in business anymore! because you can't quickly change that decision. - Oracle being perceived as high priced tends to increase our salaries. A company spends a lot of money on Oracle, so they want it used to good advantage. The salary surveys I've seen show MS SQL Server DBA with lower salaries on the average. - Has anyone seen salary survey results for MySQL or PostgreSQL? The database is free, so how much should a company spend on a DBA? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and i! ts very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: Thater, William Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: Career Advice DENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more? [and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.] -- Bill Shrek Thater ORACLE DBA I'm going to work my ticket if I can... -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED
RE: RE: Career Advice
the last two projects I have been on we are using client server with .Net. Tons of .net people, verify few database people. oracle is pushing jdeveloper hard. You need skilled java people to use that. From: DENNIS WILLIAMS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/19 Fri AM 09:44:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: RE: Career Advice Viktor, Ryan - Is what you are experiencing the result of companies moving to open-systems Web-based architectures? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 8:34 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L I agree with Ryan. Pure Oracle jobs aren't hot as they used to be. We are going through this right now. They are planning to bring in a bunch of new developers and splitting a few DBA's into dev. groups, which means we'll become more like software engineers (who can also do DBA stuff). There will be only one Prod. DBA for a zillion systems. They're driving in the direction of bringing in more cross-trained people. They want all-aroind people who know Perl, Java, Oracle etc. The motto has been: If you get hit by a bus, he/she can do it. The more you know, the better. Cross-training all the way. It's like that all-in-one fax/printer/copier thing. And at the same time, the paycheck isn't as it had been either. Viktor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: my biggest concern is the model for development has been changed. The model now is do most development with software engineers and have only a small number of database people. this means less pure oracle jobs. From: DENNIS WILLIAMS Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 02:59:26 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: RE: Career Advice Ryan - Excellent points. I well know the feeling of being tied to Oracle's future. As to Oracle pricing itself out of the market, I would like to make three points: - Pricing is one of the quickest things a vendor can change once it becomes convinced this is hurting it. On the other hand, I've seen software vendors that stopped investing in new development. They aren't in business anymore! because you can't quickly change that decision. - Oracle being perceived as high priced tends to increase our salaries. A company spends a lot of money on Oracle, so they want it used to good advantage. The salary surveys I've seen show MS SQL Server DBA with lower salaries on the average. - Has anyone seen salary survey results for MySQL or PostgreSQL? The database is free, so how much should a company spend on a DBA? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and i! ts very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: Thater, William Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: Career Advice DENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people
RE: RE: Career Advice
I think so. Most of ourWebapps arewritten in Java, _javascript_, and Perl. Some minor web stuff is generated by PL/SQL. Viktor DENNIS WILLIAMS [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Viktor, Ryan - Is what you are experiencing the result of companies movingto open-systems Web-based architectures?Dennis WilliamsDBALifetouch, Inc.[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message-Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 8:34 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LI agree with Ryan. Pure Oracle jobs aren't hot as they used to be. We aregoing through this right now. They are planning to bring in a bunch of newdevelopers and splitting a few DBA's into dev. groups, which means we'llbecome more like software engineers (who can also do DBA stuff). There willbe only one Prod. DBA for a zillion systems. They're driving in the direction of bringing in more cross-trained people.They want all-aroind people who know Perl, Java, Oracle etc. The motto hasbeen: "If you get hit by a bus,! he/she can do it". The more you know, thebetter. Cross-training all the way. It's like that all-in-onefax/printer/copier thing. And at the same time, the paycheck isn't as it had been either. Viktor[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:my biggest concern is the model for development has been changed. The modelnow is do most development with software engineers and have only a smallnumber of database people. this means less pure oracle jobs. From: DENNIS WILLIAMS Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 02:59:26 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: RE: Career Advice Ryan - Excellent points. I well know the feeling of being tied to Oracle's future. As to Oracle pricing itself out of the market, I would like tomake three points: - Pricing is one of the quickest things a vendor can change once it becomes convinced this is hurting it. On the ot! her hand, I've seensoftware vendors that stopped investing in new development. They aren't in business anymore! because you can't quickly change that decision. - Oracle being perceived as high priced tends to increase our salaries. A company spends a lot of money on Oracle, so they want it used to good advantage. The salary surveys I've seen show MS SQL Server DBA with lower salaries on the average. - Has anyone seen salary survey results for MySQL or PostgreSQL? The database is free, so how much should a company spend on a DBA? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely lovePascal programming, but I dont recommend stu! dying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far,far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past youwould hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go?I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees to! day want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont behot forever and i! ts very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: "Thater, William" Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: Career AdviceDENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: ! t; 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned?i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more?[and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding thechances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.]-- Bill "Shrek" Thater ORACLE DBA
RE: Career Advice
What about books with basic development perspective? Not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean development with Perl? Or just development in general? If development in general, you can't go wrong with 'Code Complete' by Steve McConnell, Microsoft Press. This is the best programming book I've ever read, period. As for Perl, not too much in the way of general programming principals. Best to consider other texts first for that. Not reading 'Code Complete' is a mistake. Jared On Wed, 2003-12-17 at 19:54, Viktor wrote: Dennis, Yes, my thinking is exactly the same. Before I get too much involved with Java (it will be better to take training for Java), I am going to sharpen up my skills with Perl. Should be easier to pick it up, and the learning curve won't be as steep. Every company reorg probably has more minuses that pluses. In our case the new wants the DBA's to participate in the development processes more like developers, which makes us more or less development DBA's. Writing code will be part of our job. Production DBA will do most of the true admin. tasks (unless he is out, then one of the dev. DBA's will pick that up). But other than that, it looks like I am going to be more in the dev. world. Now I'll have to kick my lazy butt to learn new stuff! Jared as always thanks! I've already thought about your book and it's now on order! What about books with basic development perspective? Thanks! Viktor DENNIS WILLIAMS [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Viktor My suggestion is to go for Perl as the quick win and impress your new boss. Perl also tends to be more useful for DBAs. Learning Java can be a more long-term proposition. First, you need to have a strong understanding of object-oriented design. We have trained developers in Java, and it hasn't been a quick learn for them. Based on what I've seen, I would push for Java training. Also, before you tear into Java, you may want to get a basic understanding of how the web stuff like HTML works. Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 6:24 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Let's take this topic into a more concrete scenario. New boss, company reorg, cross-training is enforced and now DBA'S's are going to be split into development groups. Need to learn Perl(looking forward to it actually!!!) and Java. Books, web sites, docs - all these material is great. But what if you're expected to learn fast and I can learn quickly, but still, do you guys have some advice on how can one express teach himself. Managing expectation is one thing I need to talk with boss about. Surely I would not't want to be overwhelmed with stuff at the beginning. But at the same time I am kinda excited about picking up on Java and Perl. The questions is what are the tricks and tips for learning on a fast track? Thanks! Viktor Stephane Faroult wrote: Believe somebody who first learned SQL back in 83, it's too late for Java now. Run-of-the-mill skill. Any young grad will know it and will be less expensive. ERP would be a good bet, because people learn them at work, mostly. Now, would a company change be justified just for that? Probably not. As you said, you are hired for what you know, not what you want to learn. Grasp opportunities, learn whatever looks to you useful - and fun. My 0.02 EUR. SF [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: learn java and object oriented programming. go to sun.com and start reading the java docs. go to www.bruceeckel.com and read his java book. do a search on any job sites. a ton more work for java than oracle. people who can do both are in demand. From: Mladen Gogala Date: 2003/12/17 Wed PM 01:49:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Eli! te and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry
RE: Career Advice
The question is where do you want to go today? Actually, the question is, Where do you want to go tomorrow? Consult the crystal ball when it comes to career planning. Fixing VCR's may match one's skill set but such service won't be needed much when robots can stamp out new R/W DVD's for $10 a pop. -Original Message- Mladen Gogala Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 2:04 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L On 12/17/2003 03:44:34 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: Well, good, now that we have that cleared up. Don't get me wrong, I do like your keen sense of humour and sarcasm - when I know you're joking and at times its hard to tell. Dennis has a point. The question is where do you want to go today? -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Orr, Steve INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Viktor wrote: Let's take this topic into a more concrete scenario. New boss, company reorg, cross-training is enforced and now DBA'S's are going to be split into development groups. Need to learn Perl(looking forward to it actually!!!) and Java. Books, web sites, docs - all these material is great. But what if you're expected to learn fast and I can learn quickly, but still, do you guys have some advice on how can one express teach himself. Managing expectation is one thing I need to talk with boss about. Surely I would not't want to be overwhelmed with stuff at the beginning. But at the same time I am kinda excited about picking up on Java and Perl. The questions is what are the tricks and tips for learning on a fast track? For Perl, hang out a lot at perlmonks.org. Ok, that's just one more thing for you to read, but there's some good wisdom to be found there, some very smart Perl folks there, akin to the caliber of Oracle gurus found in this group. As for fast track, aint no learnin' like doin'. If I were in your situation, here's what I would be doing: Devour a good tutorial book, working through the examples. For Perl, O'Reilly's Learning Perl. For Java, O'Reilly's Head First Java (Don't let the pictures fool you...) HFJ is really quite good. When I first saw it I thought, Oh no, O'Reilly has stooped to the for Dummies level, but such was not the case at all. Emphasis here on 'working through the examples'. Also, as I mentioned above, hang out at 'guru' spots like this list, or perlmonks.org. (Not sure where the real guru spots are for Java...) Looking back on my own learning experience with Perl, I've read a lot of stuff, but it wasn't until I really started getting my hands dirty with it on a couple of bigger projects that it started to become more natural to me. If you have the free time and resources, set up a home-lab with Apache/mod_perl and write a Perl application to do something useful for you. Then write the same thing in Java (maybe with Tomcat). HTH, -- Dan Daniel Hanks - Systems/Database Administrator About Inc., Web Services Division -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Daniel Hanks INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
DENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more? [and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.] -- Bill Shrek Thater ORACLE DBA I'm going to work my ticket if I can... -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED] Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Thater, William INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: RE: Career Advice
your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and its very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: Thater, William [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Career Advice DENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more? [and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.] -- Bill Shrek Thater ORACLE DBA I'm going to work my ticket if I can... -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED] Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Thater, William INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: RE: Career Advice
Ryan - Excellent points. I well know the feeling of being tied to Oracle's future. As to Oracle pricing itself out of the market, I would like to make three points: - Pricing is one of the quickest things a vendor can change once it becomes convinced this is hurting it. On the other hand, I've seen software vendors that stopped investing in new development. They aren't in business anymore because you can't quickly change that decision. - Oracle being perceived as high priced tends to increase our salaries. A company spends a lot of money on Oracle, so they want it used to good advantage. The salary surveys I've seen show MS SQL Server DBA with lower salaries on the average. - Has anyone seen salary survey results for MySQL or PostgreSQL? The database is free, so how much should a company spend on a DBA? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and its very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: Thater, William [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Career Advice DENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more? [and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.] -- Bill Shrek Thater ORACLE DBA I'm going to work my ticket if I can... -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED] Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Thater, William INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command
RE: RE: Career Advice
my biggest concern is the model for development has been changed. The model now is do most development with software engineers and have only a small number of database people. this means less pure oracle jobs. From: DENNIS WILLIAMS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 02:59:26 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: RE: Career Advice Ryan - Excellent points. I well know the feeling of being tied to Oracle's future. As to Oracle pricing itself out of the market, I would like to make three points: - Pricing is one of the quickest things a vendor can change once it becomes convinced this is hurting it. On the other hand, I've seen software vendors that stopped investing in new development. They aren't in business anymore because you can't quickly change that decision. - Oracle being perceived as high priced tends to increase our salaries. A company spends a lot of money on Oracle, so they want it used to good advantage. The salary surveys I've seen show MS SQL Server DBA with lower salaries on the average. - Has anyone seen salary survey results for MySQL or PostgreSQL? The database is free, so how much should a company spend on a DBA? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and its very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: Thater, William [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Career Advice DENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more? [and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.] -- Bill Shrek Thater ORACLE DBA I'm going to work my ticket if I can... -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED] Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Thater, William INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat
RE: RE: Career Advice
Ryan -- I agree with a lot of what you said, but there are points that I really must disagree on. Firstly, you should *always* study what you love, but know that there are varying degrees of applicability to your chosen field, and certain areas will always be more lucrative than others. Furthermore, as you alluded to, the most lucrative technical areas are constantly in a state of flux. Where VMS was more lucrative than Unix in the mid-80s, the two switched positions in the mid-90s, and VMS is, quite unfortunately, largely dead now. The best thing one can do with a technical career, as you and others have said, is to diversify; but, when one adds breadth, one often sacrifices depth. If, for example, you choose to diversify and become a SunOS System Administrator or Powerbuilder programmer in addition to being an Oracle DBA, as time goes on, you will generally wind up giving one or both short shrift or sacrificing your free time in order to stay on top of both. The more additional responsibilities you add, the less depth you tend to keep. While you lower your exposure to vulnerability due to changes in the technical world or the caprices of the corporate world, you may also lower your overall value in both. Of course, you can market it that you have a bigger picture view of things and steer yourself career towards management; but, again, the higher the bird's eye view you have, the further you tend to be from the keyboard, and if the keyboard is what you love, that's what you need to keep doing. Now that I've been in the field for 25+ years, the best career advice I can give is to stay on top of current trends and be willing to gain competencies as various technologies wax and ditch areas - even of strength - as they wane. The other piece of advice I can give is that hot technology trends have a fixed shelf-life before new technologies replace them; try to stay with products that continue to evolve, or, if you are change-averse, stick with technologies that change very slowly but have proven their staying power (IBM, CICS, Unix). Finally, let me share one of the philosophical cornerstones of my life. Your life is delimited by two points in time: your moment of birth and your moment of death; you can do with the time in between largely what you will, and it is your use of time that defines you. Time is only currency with intrinsic value. If you wind up hating what you do for a living, you will wind up having wasted your life. HTH, Bambi. -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and its very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: Thater, William [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Career Advice DENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more? [and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being
RE: RE: Career Advice
I agree with Ryan. Pure Oracle jobs aren't hot as they used to be. We are going throughthisright now.Theyare planning to bring in a bunch of new developers and splitting a few DBA's into dev. groups, which means we'll become more likesoftware engineers (who can also do DBA stuff). There will be only one Prod. DBA for a zillion systems. They're drivingin the direction ofbringing in more cross-trained people. They want all-aroind people who know Perl, Java, Oracle etc. The motto has been: "If you get hit by a bus, he/she can do it". The more you know, the better. Cross-training all the way.It's like thatall-in-one fax/printer/copier thing. And at the same time, the paycheck isn't as it had been either. Viktor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: my biggest concern is the model for development has been changed. The model now is do most development with software engineers and have only a small number of database people. this means less pure oracle jobs. From: DENNIS WILLIAMS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 02:59:26 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: RE: Career Advice Ryan - Excellent points. I well know the feeling of being tied to Oracle's future. As to Oracle pricing itself out of the market, I would like to make three points: - Pricing is one of the quickest things a vendor can change once it becomes convinced this is hurting it. On the other hand, I've seen software vendors that stopped investing in new development. They aren't in business anymore! because you can't quickly change that decision. - Oracle being perceived as high priced tends to increase our salaries. A company spends a lot of money on Oracle, so they want it used to good advantage. The salary surveys I've seen show MS SQL Server DBA with lower salaries on the average. - Has anyone seen salary survey results for MySQL or PostgreSQL? The database is free, so how much should a company spend on a DBA? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and i! ts very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: "Thater, William" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Career AdviceDENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned?i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more?[and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.]-- Bill "Shrek" Thater ORACLE DBA "I'm going to work my ticket if I can..." -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED] Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Thater, William INET: [EM
RE: RE: Career Advice
I agree with Ryan. Pure Oracle jobs aren't hot as they used to be. We are going throughthisright now.Theyare planning to bring in a bunch of new developers and splitting a few DBA's into dev. groups, which means we'll become more likesoftware engineers (who can also do DBA stuff). There will be only one Prod. DBA for a zillion systems. They're drivingin the direction ofbringing in more cross-trained people. They want all-aroind people who know Perl, Java, Oracle etc. The motto has been: "If you get hit by a bus, he/she can do it". The more you know, the better. Cross-training all the way.It's like thatall-in-one fax/printer/copier thing. And at the same time, the paycheck isn't as it had been either. Viktor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: my biggest concern is the model for development has been changed. The model now is do most development with software engineers and have only a small number of database people. this means less pure oracle jobs. From: DENNIS WILLIAMS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 02:59:26 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: RE: Career Advice Ryan - Excellent points. I well know the feeling of being tied to Oracle's future. As to Oracle pricing itself out of the market, I would like to make three points: - Pricing is one of the quickest things a vendor can change once it becomes convinced this is hurting it. On the other hand, I've seen software vendors that stopped investing in new development. They aren't in business anymore! because you can't quickly change that decision. - Oracle being perceived as high priced tends to increase our salaries. A company spends a lot of money on Oracle, so they want it used to good advantage. The salary surveys I've seen show MS SQL Server DBA with lower salaries on the average. - Has anyone seen salary survey results for MySQL or PostgreSQL? The database is free, so how much should a company spend on a DBA? Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:19 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L your goals should tie into the job market. you might absolutely love Pascal programming, but I dont recommend studying it. Right now(and I dont know how it will fluctuate), there is far, far, far more demand for Software Engineers who specialize in Java or .Net. Far, far, far, more than people who specialize in the Oracle database. I think there has been a fundamental shift in database development. In the past you would hire mostly Oracle specialized people to do most of your development. They would use forms or powerbuilder to do your GUIs. These days, a growing number of teams hire a large number of java or .Net experts and only a handful of database people. is this the best way to go? I dont know. I do see a trend though. How long will the trend last? I do not know. The biggest problem for IT workers is that we are so tied to one specific skillset and vendor. If Oracle prices themselves out of the market, our skills become far less valued. Employees today want super specialized skillsets. If you have them and they are hot, your set, but they wont be hot forever and i! ts very hard to switch since people want experience in the specific skillset before hiring you. From: "Thater, William" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2003/12/18 Thu PM 01:44:37 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Career AdviceDENNIS WILLIAMS scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned?i'd like to add one more... 4. is this something where getting it right will still give you a charge after doing it for 10 years or more?[and yes DBA and programming still do for me. but i'm finding the chances of being allowed to do it right are becoming few and far between.]-- Bill "Shrek" Thater ORACLE DBA "I'm going to work my ticket if I can..." -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED] Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Thater, William INET: [EM
Career Advice
As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared Saira Somani-Mendelin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Career Advice As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Sadly, I do agree with you, but its a silly world out there. You cant get a job working with these packages without experience, and you cant get experience if you dont work with these packages. So my alternatives are few to none. Indeed, the Tecsys applications are comparable to many complex applications in the market so I think that really works in my favour. But hiring managers want to see the big names on your resume it wont matter that Tecsys is just as complex. I guess the next step would be find a position where one of these other applications is actually used. Perhaps just getting familiar with one of these would help me get my foot in the door. Thanks Jared. Saira -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: December 17, 2003 1:09 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared Saira Somani-Mendelin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Career Advice As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Hi Somani, This is, of course, just one opinion. YMMV. I would recommend that you go deep enough on the Oracle server until you would be willing to take the junior off your title. The reason for this recommendation is that the server is an intricate piece of software that rewards study and experimentatation. If you were to go for any of the large ERP's that are out there you will find that they each have a great deal of application specific administration that has little or nothing to do with the database directly. There is literraly 1000's of pages of documentation for the server and more 1000's of pages of documentation for the ERP's. Frequently, an ERP will have certain rigidities in the database configuration that will not permit you to gain knowledge about certain areas of the server technologies. Query tuning in an ERP environment is an order of magnitude more difficult because you don't own the sql. The query source is available but in general query tuning can turn into a cooperative effort with your ERP vendor or you will find upgrades to be significantly harder projects. When you control the source it is a lot easier to learn that particular area. Similarly, the ERP's all lag the server releases in terms of feature usage. In ERP's there is generally a division between functional folks who do the transaction and business related setup and problem resoultion. Technical people generally focus on the interface between the OS environment and the applications. For instance, on the tech side you might have responsibilities for the forms server (Oracle Finapps) and the web servers, where a functional person might setup GL and be responsible for transaction and data problems in that area. If you shop has an installation of much more than moderate size you will most likely have to specialize. Most ERP's will take 3 to 5 years to learn reasonably well. I know only a handful of people that are genuinely competent in more than one. Just some thoughts. That's a nice complicated question you asked Allan -Original Message- Saira Somani-Mendelin Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:44 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). __ This email is intended solely for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged information. Copying, forwarding or distributing this message by persons or entities other than the addressee is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please contact the sender immediately and delete the material from any computer. This email may have been monitored for policy compliance. [021216] -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Nelson, Allan INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Wow... as talented and knowledgeable as you are, you are one really bored DBA. You must work alone, or be self-employed. Or maybe you are trying to tell me to read between the lines... In any case, I won't get into a silly argument with you. Thanks for your advice, Saira -Original Message- Mladen Gogala Sent: December 17, 2003 1:49 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Mladen Gogala scribbled on the wall in glitter crayon: Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. son, that there was blues, not country.;-) We're on a mission from God. -- Bill Shrek Thater ORACLE DBA I'm going to work my ticket if I can... -- Gilwell song [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sorry no quote today. Visit QLiner.com. -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Thater, William INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Re: Career Advice
learn java and object oriented programming. go to sun.com and start reading the java docs. go to www.bruceeckel.com and read his java book. do a search on any job sites. a ton more work for java than oracle. people who can do both are in demand. From: Mladen Gogala [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/17 Wed PM 01:49:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Career Advice Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Hi Allan, Please call me Saira :) All you are saying is true. I find that in my present role, I don't have access to the applications source code so I have to look at the database for performance tuning (which should be the case anyway to start). On the other hand, I'm the only one at this job so I have a lot of flexibility about how much I know about the application - luckily, I own all of it so I am able to experiment at my leisure. Thank you for taking out the time to write all your thoughts. You've given me much to think about. Saira -Original Message- Nelson, Allan Sent: December 17, 2003 1:59 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Hi Somani, This is, of course, just one opinion. YMMV. I would recommend that you go deep enough on the Oracle server until you would be willing to take the junior off your title. The reason for this recommendation is that the server is an intricate piece of software that rewards study and experimentatation. If you were to go for any of the large ERP's that are out there you will find that they each have a great deal of application specific administration that has little or nothing to do with the database directly. There is literraly 1000's of pages of documentation for the server and more 1000's of pages of documentation for the ERP's. Frequently, an ERP will have certain rigidities in the database configuration that will not permit you to gain knowledge about certain areas of the server technologies. Query tuning in an ERP environment is an order of magnitude more difficult because you don't own the sql. The query source is available but in general query tuning can turn into a cooperative effort with your ERP vendor or you will find upgrades to be significantly harder projects. When you control the source it is a lot easier to learn that particular area. Similarly, the ERP's all lag the server releases in terms of feature usage. In ERP's there is generally a division between functional folks who do the transaction and business related setup and problem resoultion. Technical people generally focus on the interface between the OS environment and the applications. For instance, on the tech side you might have responsibilities for the forms server (Oracle Finapps) and the web servers, where a functional person might setup GL and be responsible for transaction and data problems in that area. If you shop has an installation of much more than moderate size you will most likely have to specialize. Most ERP's will take 3 to 5 years to learn reasonably well. I know only a handful of people that are genuinely competent in more than one. Just some thoughts. That's a nice complicated question you asked Allan -Original Message- Saira Somani-Mendelin Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:44 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). __ This email is intended solely for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged information. Copying, forwarding or distributing this message by persons or entities other than the addressee is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please contact the sender immediately and delete the material from any computer. This email may have been monitored for policy compliance. [021216] -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Nelson, Allan INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services--
RE: Career Advice
I'd look to the business side of things to get your foot in the door if you want to work with some of the more well-known application suites. While the specific knowledge of one application suite is seldom easily transferred to another application, the requirements and experience of the actual users of these applications are likely to be similar regardless of which application suite they use. HR people tend to want the same sort of information out of a HR application regardless of what company's brand is on the software. If I were a hiring manager, I'd be much more willing to take a risk on someone who is unfamiliar with a particular package but whose understanding of the business needs that application supports is excellent than someone who has experience with a toy install of the package that doesn't stand out on the business side. It's a lot easier to find someone who has experience with a particular package than someone who has useful business knowledge and enough technology understanding to pick up the specifics. Justin Cave At 11:54 AM 12/17/2003, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: Sadly, I do agree with you, but it’s a silly world out there. You can’t get a job working with these packages without experience, and you can’t get experience if you don’t work with these packages. So my alternatives are few to none. Indeed, the Tecsys applications are comparable to many complex applications in the market – so I think that really works in my favour. But hiring managers want to see the big names on your resume – it won’t matter that Tecsys is just as complex. I guess the next step would be find a position where one of these other applications is actually used. Perhaps just getting familiar with one of these would help me get my foot in the door. Thanks Jared. Saira -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: December 17, 2003 1:09 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared Saira Somani-Mendelin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject: Career Advice As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
That right, packaged software like SAP and PeopleSoftware should be learned in the real implementation or real usage case. By simply getting the software and use it yourself, it is very difficult to even grasp the basic idea about those business transactions. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:09 PM Subject: Re: Career Advice Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared "Saira Somani-Mendelin" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Career AdviceAs an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more butI'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice.Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn anothersuite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that mycompany does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsyscalled Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, asmany customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about theothers? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from theOracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any ofthese products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before.Thanks,Saira-- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net-- Author: Saira Somani-MendelinINET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.comSan Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services-To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail messageto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and inthe message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You mayalso send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Is it that difficult though? Just to get familiar with it if youve worked with other similar software before? I guess youd be looking at a lot of theory, and not nearly enough practice. But then, how do I get obtain these more attractive, marketable skills? I must start somewhere, no? Thanks, Saira -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of eric king Sent: December 17, 2003 1:55 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice That right, packaged software like SAP and PeopleSoftware should be learned in the real implementation or real usage case. By simply getting the software and use it yourself, it is very difficult to even grasp the basic idea about those business transactions. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:09 PM Subject: Re: Career Advice Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared Saira Somani-Mendelin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Career Advice As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
Or maybe you are trying to tell me to read between the lines... I'm not. I was just kidding. I don't know any of this stuff (SAP, Siebel, Oracle Apps) and I do make my living. Frankly, I don't like specialists, because they end up just like pandas: no bamboo shoots, and they starve. Black bears and racoons are more to my liking: they eat anything (one of my neighbors lost two cats when she moved from NYC to CT) and thrive. Being an oracle DBA looked like a safe proposition just two years ago. Now I'm doing lots of perl, some PHP, linux, samba, I started playing with PostgresSQL (cool stuff) and I made oracle database just one among my skills. I'm quickly honing skills of a standup comedian, too. Please, do not misunderestimate me. My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
There is no set formula now. But learning a fair amount of SQL, Oracle Database and Unix Administration can do you no wrong. IN my experience the companies or people that hire you because of big names on your resume are NOT the ones you want to work for. IT administration work has become more specialized of late. In particular DBA work has become more low level or hardware close at least from my perspective. As you become more familiar with the application running on the database you begin to drift more and more towards the business end user. The result if your technical understanding shifts from data reliability and security to how the data is used and perceived by the users. Your choice as a young IT professional if to determine where your particular natural talents are best utilized. Ask yourself these two questions and be honest with yourself: 1. Are you a people person with compassion and empathy for people's problems and do you have the ability to visualize data in format that business users can comprehend? 2. Are you a good technical troubleshooter with the ability track down solutions wherever they reside in the network, OS, database, middleware or client If you answered yes to the first and you find yourself helping user understand the data better then continuing in the business analyst support role would be the direction for you. If you find yourself as the support person for the analysts and work at the OS level with the system admins then the DBA route is problem better suited to you. As you choose where you are headed remember to celebrate the SKILLS and TALENTS you have on your resume. Skills you have like people skills, communication and troubleshooting rather than highlight anyone package or technology. Talents are ease of learning or a programming language like PL/SQL, SQL, perl or korn shell. The tools are all similar how you were able to learn to use them is better. Many times in down economies a new employee is brought into IT because the different perspective is desired. The successful IT professional has to have the ability to drift with the tide of technology and adapt to change rapidly and to help lead the way through unknown territory with confidence. You can't trust the vendors and you can't trust the documentation all the time but you can trust your own abilities to sift through the chaff to find direction. Looking at the IT world as a whole is the best place to start. Seeing the strata from the network to OS through the database, middleware, workstation and finally enduser is the view that will help you succeed. Knowing where you are and how to overlap the boundaries is the best way navigate an IT career. What we do is not rocket science but you can't do rocket science without us. Good luck in your future. Brad O. -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:44 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Odland, Brad INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP
RE: Career Advice
If you need specifics for a home learning environment setting up Oracle 8.1.7.4 on a Gentoo linux box at home is a great learning exersize. (I've yet to do the Gentoo thing, RedHat right now) (You need at least two computers at home...List how many computers do you have at home.be honest...even the dead ones...) And to do so without useing the Database configuration assistant. Then go through upgrades to 9.2.0.4 Set up some locally managed tablespaces, enable archive logging, write some hotbackup and coldbackup scripts, alter datafiles, make new ones, load some bogus data, do exports, imports. Drop table and recover them from exports, break the database, recover from backupsset up procedures for adding new users of pretend application. Create roles for developers, users and analysts...write a PL/SQL program to generate gobs of fake test data. Hotbackups everynight, nightly processing jobs, trunc tables and move data around Fiddle with connection manager, OMS, OEM, the agent and Oracle Names. Run various DBA tools TOAD, dbVisualizer do some connections with JDBC and setup apache with PHP and write a few goofy pages to query the data dictionary and format output to your browser. Convert OraHoo0.5 from Oracle function to OCI functions (that's a fun exercise) All of that is free and downloadable with plenty of documentation. That experience alone will do a ton for you and keep you busy at home for months. pretty much all of the network, OS and database skills are covered. And you can say you've been exposed to performing these tasks and if you put all your scripts your write on a cd you can take it with you for a long time. We all have our pile o'scripts we take with from place to place. Have fun! Brad O. -Original Message-From: Saira Somani-Mendelin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:24 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: RE: Career Advice Is it that difficult though? Just to get familiar with it if youve worked with other similar software before? I guess youd be looking at a lot of theory, and not nearly enough practice. But then, how do I get obtain these more attractive, marketable skills? I must start somewhere, no? Thanks, Saira -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of eric kingSent: December 17, 2003 1:55 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: Re: Career Advice That right, packaged software like SAP and PeopleSoftware should be learned in the real implementation or real usage case. By simply getting the software and use it yourself, it is very difficult to even grasp the basic idea about those business transactions. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:09 PM Subject: Re: Career Advice Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared "Saira Somani-Mendelin" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Career Advice As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more butI'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice.Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn anothersuite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that mycompany does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsyscalled Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, asmany customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about theothers? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from theOracle Store. Has anyone actually trie
RE: Career Advice
That is an excellent guideline. I find myself as somewhere in the middle of those two spectrums, a little more towards the second one. My personal belief is that languages can be learnt - like Java or any other code - if you possess the skills. I can read and understand 4GL code without ever being exposed to it. I think learning the fundamentals, the inner workings, the internals is key to success. I'm being led towards a generalist type of role/career path and I'm starting to wonder if it's the right one. I live in Toronto, so maybe the employment market is different here from other metropolitan areas, but I'm finding a huge demand for applications specialists. But like anything in IT, I'm sure it will subside in a couple of years, by the time I'm up to speed :) If there is anything I have learnt from working with this particular software package from Tecsys, is not to trust their documentation or their advice even (as you point out). They ported their application from Informix to Oracle, so we are experiencing the pains they never had to in their pre-release days. But luckily, I am somewhat in control of how the applications are implemented and enhanced. I like the fact that I can adapt to the new without much effort. I think that's valuable - but try telling that to a recruiter or an HR person. You've given me great perspective on what is important. Thanks, Saira -Original Message- Odland, Brad Sent: December 17, 2003 2:54 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L There is no set formula now. But learning a fair amount of SQL, Oracle Database and Unix Administration can do you no wrong. IN my experience the companies or people that hire you because of big names on your resume are NOT the ones you want to work for. IT administration work has become more specialized of late. In particular DBA work has become more low level or hardware close at least from my perspective. As you become more familiar with the application running on the database you begin to drift more and more towards the business end user. The result if your technical understanding shifts from data reliability and security to how the data is used and perceived by the users. Your choice as a young IT professional if to determine where your particular natural talents are best utilized. Ask yourself these two questions and be honest with yourself: 1. Are you a people person with compassion and empathy for people's problems and do you have the ability to visualize data in format that business users can comprehend? 2. Are you a good technical troubleshooter with the ability track down solutions wherever they reside in the network, OS, database, middleware or client If you answered yes to the first and you find yourself helping user understand the data better then continuing in the business analyst support role would be the direction for you. If you find yourself as the support person for the analysts and work at the OS level with the system admins then the DBA route is problem better suited to you. As you choose where you are headed remember to celebrate the SKILLS and TALENTS you have on your resume. Skills you have like people skills, communication and troubleshooting rather than highlight anyone package or technology. Talents are ease of learning or a programming language like PL/SQL, SQL, perl or korn shell. The tools are all similar how you were able to learn to use them is better. Many times in down economies a new employee is brought into IT because the different perspective is desired. The successful IT professional has to have the ability to drift with the tide of technology and adapt to change rapidly and to help lead the way through unknown territory with confidence. You can't trust the vendors and you can't trust the documentation all the time but you can trust your own abilities to sift through the chaff to find direction. Looking at the IT world as a whole is the best place to start. Seeing the strata from the network to OS through the database, middleware, workstation and finally enduser is the view that will help you succeed. Knowing where you are and how to overlap the boundaries is the best way navigate an IT career. What we do is not rocket science but you can't do rocket science without us. Good luck in your future. Brad O. -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. Even if it is wearing a sandwich board that says, Hot Large Pizza Now $5.00 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Odland, Brad INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
Large pizza for $5 Where? On 12/17/2003 03:14:43 PM, Odland, Brad wrote: My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. Even if it is wearing a sandwich board that says, Hot Large Pizza Now $5.00 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Odland, Brad INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? If you are considering putting significant effort into this area, it is invaluable to do some informational interviews. Find someone that does the work you would like to or hires people that do the work. Interview them to find what skills and experiences are required and how you would acquire those skills and experiences. Ask what their career path was as an example. Many career advice books describe how to secure and conduct informational interviews. In a way, that is what you are doing on this forum. You have received some great replies to your posting. I think the wide range of replies are indicative of the problem. The ERP packages are very large, complex, expensive, and critically important for the client organization. The big packages like SAP and Oracle Apps are nearly always used by very large corporations. There are a wide range of people that work with these packages, from specialized business users all the way down to the lowly DBA. Ideally, at a corporation, the various people work together as a team, pooling their knowledge and skills. Often these applications are installed by a team of vendor installers that travel the world doing just that task. And even if you did manage to get the application installed on your laptop, it would probably take a lot of training to operate significant portions of the application. When one of these applications are installed at a corporation, there are weeks of training for many different people throughout the organization. I would strongly suggest that you first focus on your DBA skills. This list is an excellent source of insights in how to deepen your DBA skills. You might consider researching the Oracle interface for the various applications. However, in general this part of the application is not well documented, even in the vendor documentation. But you might be able to decode a significant amount of the interface. And you goal would be to learn enough to exhibit a keen interest in learning to a prospective employer that might consider hiring you over other candidates. If they are able to easily find candidates with years of experience . . . well, it isn't going to be very promising for you, regardless of how much self-study you've put in. Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:24 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Is it that difficult though? Just to get familiar with it... if you've worked with other similar software before? I guess you'd be looking at a lot of theory, and not nearly enough practice. But then, how do I get obtain these more attractive, marketable skills? I must start somewhere, no? Thanks, Saira -Original Message- king Sent: December 17, 2003 1:55 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L That right, packaged software like SAP and PeopleSoftware should be learned in the real implementation or real usage case. By simply getting the software and use it yourself, it is very difficult to even grasp the basic idea about those business transactions. - Original Message - To: Multiple mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:09 PM Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared Saira Somani-Mendelin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Career Advice
RE: Career Advice
Ok, we're getting way OT now My local Little Caesars Pizza has the Hot and Ready deal going. One large w/ pepperoni for $5, carry-out only. -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 3:29 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Large pizza for $5 Where? On 12/17/2003 03:14:43 PM, Odland, Brad wrote: My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. Even if it is wearing a sandwich board that says, Hot Large Pizza Now $5.00 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Odland, Brad INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Bobak, Mark INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Little Caesars. $5 CDN (Seriously). -Original Message- Mladen Gogala Sent: December 17, 2003 3:29 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Large pizza for $5 Where? On 12/17/2003 03:14:43 PM, Odland, Brad wrote: My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. Even if it is wearing a sandwich board that says, Hot Large Pizza Now $5.00 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Odland, Brad INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Well, good, now that we have that cleared up. Don't get me wrong, I do like your keen sense of humour and sarcasm - when I know you're joking and at times its hard to tell. I've hesitated to learn Perl - don't know why, but now I find I have to know it to do my job better, esp when I'm working with Oracle. Shell programming is also getting lots of attention from me. I worked with PostgreSQL when it first came out and then I forgot about it. Thanks for the insight. Saira -Original Message- Mladen Gogala Sent: December 17, 2003 2:34 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Or maybe you are trying to tell me to read between the lines... I'm not. I was just kidding. I don't know any of this stuff (SAP, Siebel, Oracle Apps) and I do make my living. Frankly, I don't like specialists, because they end up just like pandas: no bamboo shoots, and they starve. Black bears and racoons are more to my liking: they eat anything (one of my neighbors lost two cats when she moved from NYC to CT) and thrive. Being an oracle DBA looked like a safe proposition just two years ago. Now I'm doing lots of perl, some PHP, linux, samba, I started playing with PostgresSQL (cool stuff) and I made oracle database just one among my skills. I'm quickly honing skills of a standup comedian, too. Please, do not misunderestimate me. My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Saira Somani-Mendelin INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
Does il in your email address stand for Illinois? Is it in the Chicago area? If it's Peoria, then I understand. On 12/17/2003 03:39:26 PM, Bobak, Mark wrote: Ok, we're getting way OT now My local Little Caesars Pizza has the Hot and Ready deal going. One large w/ pepperoni for $5, carry-out only. -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 3:29 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Large pizza for $5 Where? On 12/17/2003 03:14:43 PM, Odland, Brad wrote: My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. Even if it is wearing a sandwich board that says, Hot Large Pizza Now $5.00 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Odland, Brad INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Bobak, Mark INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
On 12/17/2003 03:44:34 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: Well, good, now that we have that cleared up. Don't get me wrong, I do like your keen sense of humour and sarcasm - when I know you're joking and at times its hard to tell. Dennis has a point. The question is where do you want to go today? -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Sounds like a fun time J no really Thanks for all the details. Right now I have one computer that is used by everyone. I have a spare laptop but I can always buy a couple of cheap computers to set up a mini lab. Thanks, Saira -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Odland, Brad Sent: December 17, 2003 3:14 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: Career Advice If you need specifics for a home learning environment setting up Oracle 8.1.7.4 on a Gentoo linux box at home is a great learning exersize. (I've yet to do the Gentoo thing, RedHat right now) (You need at least two computers at home...List how many computers do you have at home.be honest...even the dead ones...) And to do so without useing the Database configuration assistant. Then go through upgrades to 9.2.0.4 Set up some locally managed tablespaces, enable archive logging, write some hotbackup and coldbackup scripts, alter datafiles, make new ones, load some bogus data, do exports, imports. Drop table and recover them from exports, break the database, recover from backupsset up procedures for adding new users of pretend application. Create roles for developers, users and analysts...write a PL/SQL program to generate gobs of fake test data. Hotbackups everynight, nightly processing jobs, trunc tables and move data around Fiddle with connection manager, OMS, OEM, the agent and Oracle Names. Run various DBA tools TOAD, dbVisualizer do some connections with JDBC and setup apache with PHP and write a few goofy pages to query the data dictionary and format output to your browser. Convert OraHoo0.5 from Oracle function to OCI functions (that's a fun exercise) All of that is free and downloadable with plenty of documentation. That experience alone will do a ton for you and keep you busy at home for months. pretty much all of the network, OS and database skills are covered. And you can say you've been exposed to performing these tasks and if you put all your scripts your write on a cd you can take it with you for a long time. We all have our pile o'scripts we take with from place to place. Have fun! Brad O. -Original Message- From: Saira Somani-Mendelin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:24 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: Career Advice Is it that difficult though? Just to get familiar with it if youve worked with other similar software before? I guess youd be looking at a lot of theory, and not nearly enough practice. But then, how do I get obtain these more attractive, marketable skills? I must start somewhere, no? Thanks, Saira -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of eric king Sent: December 17, 2003 1:55 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice That right, packaged software like SAP and PeopleSoftware should be learned in the real implementation or real usage case. By simply getting the software and use it yourself, it is very difficult to even grasp the basic idea about those business transactions. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:09 PM Subject: Re: Career Advice Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community, unlike a database. HTH Jared Saira Somani-Mendelin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 09:44 AM Please respond to ORACLE-L To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Career Advice As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands
RE: Career Advice
Nope, IL=IL=Information Learning, which is the division of ProQuest that I work for. I'm work in Ann Arbor, the place I'm refering to is in Belleville, which is between Detroit and AA. -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 3:49 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Does il in your email address stand for Illinois? Is it in the Chicago area? If it's Peoria, then I understand. On 12/17/2003 03:39:26 PM, Bobak, Mark wrote: Ok, we're getting way OT now My local Little Caesars Pizza has the Hot and Ready deal going. One large w/ pepperoni for $5, carry-out only. -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 3:29 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Large pizza for $5 Where? On 12/17/2003 03:14:43 PM, Odland, Brad wrote: My career advice to you is: do whatever sells. Even if it is wearing a sandwich board that says, Hot Large Pizza Now $5.00 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Odland, Brad INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Bobak, Mark INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mladen Gogala INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Bobak, Mark INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Dennis, As always, you offer excellent suggestions. You have all given me many things to consider. Thank you for taking the time to help me out! It is, indeed, a suberb mailing list. Saira -Original Message- DENNIS WILLIAMS Sent: December 17, 2003 3:40 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Saira I think you have to decide what your goal is. Then you need to decide how to best accomplish that goal. One tool that can lead you toward a goal is self-study. I have used that tool many times myself. However, with experience you learn the self-study tool has its limits. To consider self-study, consider the following questions: 1. Is this an area that I can gain significant knowledge with a reasonable amount of effort? For example, are there good books available? Is the area well-defined enough for self-study? 2. Since I'm trying to substitute self-effort for work experience, is this an area where there are few people with real work experience? 3. Are there credentials that can be earned? If you are considering putting significant effort into this area, it is invaluable to do some informational interviews. Find someone that does the work you would like to or hires people that do the work. Interview them to find what skills and experiences are required and how you would acquire those skills and experiences. Ask what their career path was as an example. Many career advice books describe how to secure and conduct informational interviews. In a way, that is what you are doing on this forum. You have received some great replies to your posting. I think the wide range of replies are indicative of the problem. The ERP packages are very large, complex, expensive, and critically important for the client organization. The big packages like SAP and Oracle Apps are nearly always used by very large corporations. There are a wide range of people that work with these packages, from specialized business users all the way down to the lowly DBA. Ideally, at a corporation, the various people work together as a team, pooling their knowledge and skills. Often these applications are installed by a team of vendor installers that travel the world doing just that task. And even if you did manage to get the application installed on your laptop, it would probably take a lot of training to operate significant portions of the application. When one of these applications are installed at a corporation, there are weeks of training for many different people throughout the organization. I would strongly suggest that you first focus on your DBA skills. This list is an excellent source of insights in how to deepen your DBA skills. You might consider researching the Oracle interface for the various applications. However, in general this part of the application is not well documented, even in the vendor documentation. But you might be able to decode a significant amount of the interface. And you goal would be to learn enough to exhibit a keen interest in learning to a prospective employer that might consider hiring you over other candidates. If they are able to easily find candidates with years of experience . . . well, it isn't going to be very promising for you, regardless of how much self-study you've put in. Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:24 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Is it that difficult though? Just to get familiar with it... if you've worked with other similar software before? I guess you'd be looking at a lot of theory, and not nearly enough practice. But then, how do I get obtain these more attractive, marketable skills? I must start somewhere, no? Thanks, Saira -Original Message- king Sent: December 17, 2003 1:55 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L That right, packaged software like SAP and PeopleSoftware should be learned in the real implementation or real usage case. By simply getting the software and use it yourself, it is very difficult to even grasp the basic idea about those business transactions. - Original Message - To: Multiple mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:09 PM Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I think that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn any of these packages without actually being in an environment where they are used. It may be that Tecsys is a complex set of apps on the same level as SAP or Oracle Apps, and if so, then maybe that background would prepare you to tackle this on your own. Either way, it will be difficult without access to official support, which you won't have unless you're in a working environment that includes the app you are attempting to learn. You would also not have exposure to the people that are actually using the stuff, which is pretty important for software that is directly used by most of the user community
Re: Career Advice
Believe somebody who first learned SQL back in 83, it's too late for Java now. Run-of-the-mill skill. Any young grad will know it and will be less expensive. ERP would be a good bet, because people learn them at work, mostly. Now, would a company change be justified just for that? Probably not. As you said, you are hired for what you know, not what you want to learn. Grasp opportunities, learn whatever looks to you useful - and fun. My 0.02 EUR. SF [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: learn java and object oriented programming. go to sun.com and start reading the java docs. go to www.bruceeckel.com and read his java book. do a search on any job sites. a ton more work for java than oracle. people who can do both are in demand. From: Mladen Gogala [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2003/12/17 Wed PM 01:49:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Career Advice Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Elite and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Stephane Faroult INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re[2]: Career Advice
Wednesday, December 17, 2003, 4:24:50 PM, Bobak, Mark ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: BM I'm work in Ann Arbor, the place I'm refering to is in Belleville, which is between Detroit BM and AA. Hey, I know Belleville, sort of. Back when I as a kid, my dad used to deliver potato chips to some Belleville area stores. I used to work with him during summers. That was way back in the dark ages, before the dinosaurs roamed the earth. I can't recall anything more specific now than that we had several stops to make there. Best regards, Jonathan Gennick --- Brighten the corner where you are http://Gennick.com * 906.387.1698 * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Join the Oracle-article list and receive one article on Oracle technologies per month by email. To join, visit http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/oracle-article, or send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include the word subscribe in either the subject or body. -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Jonathan Gennick INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Re: Career Advice
Let's take this topic into a more concrete scenario. New boss, company reorg, cross-training is enforced and now DBA'S's are going to be split into development groups. Need to learn Perl(looking forward to it actually!!!) and Java. Books, web sites, docs - all these material is great. But what if you're expected to learn fast and I can learn quickly, but still, do you guys have some advice on how can one "express" teach himself. Managing expectation is one thing I need to talk with boss about. Surely I would not't want to be overwhelmed with stuff at the beginning. But at the same time I am kinda excited about picking up on Java and Perl. The questions is what are the tricks and tips for learning on a fast track? Thanks! Viktor Stephane Faroult [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Believe somebody who first learned SQL back in 83, it's too late forJava now. Run-of-the-mill skill. Any young grad will know it and will beless expensive.ERP would be a good bet, because people learn them at work, mostly. Now,would a company change be justified just for that? Probably not. As yousaid, you are hired for what you know, not what you want to learn. Graspopportunities, learn whatever looks to you useful - and fun.My 0.02 EUR.SF[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: learn java and object oriented programming. go to sun.com and start reading the java docs. go to www.bruceeckel.com and read his java book. do a search on any job sites. a ton more work for java than oracle. people who can do both are in demand. From: Mladen Gogala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]><B! R> Date: 2003/12/17 Wed PM 01:49:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Career Advice Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting "Stand By your man" just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Eli! te and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net-- Author: Stephane FaroultINET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.comSan Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services-To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail messageto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and inthe message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You mayalso send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
Re: Career Advice
Perl: Since you're working with Oracle, if you were to buy only one book, you might consider: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/oracleperl If you but 20 of them I can take my wife out to lunch. Not a bad idea to have Learning Perl, Programming Perl, The Perl Cookbook and The Perl DBI. Very few non-Oreilly books on Perl are worth contemplating. All are available on CD. Java: Sun's Java course is pretty good. Thinking in Java is highly recommended. There are probably those with better recommendations for Java. Jared Viktor [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/2003 04:24 PM Please respond to ORACLE-L To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Re: Career Advice Let's take this topic into a more concrete scenario. New boss, company reorg, cross-training is enforced and now DBA'S's are going to be split into development groups. Need to learn Perl(looking forward to it actually!!!) and Java. Books, web sites, docs - all these material is great. But what if you're expected to learn fast and I can learn quickly, but still, do you guys have some advice on how can one express teach himself. Managing expectation is one thing I need to talk with boss about. Surely I would not't want to be overwhelmed with stuff at the beginning. But at the same time I am kinda excited about picking up on Java and Perl. The questions is what are the tricks and tips for learning on a fast track? Thanks! Viktor Stephane Faroult [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Believe somebody who first learned SQL back in 83, it's too late for Java now. Run-of-the-mill skill. Any young grad will know it and will be less expensive. ERP would be a good bet, because people learn them at work, mostly. Now, would a company change be justified just for that? Probably not. As you said, you are hired for what you know, not what you want to learn. Grasp opportunities, learn whatever looks to you useful - and fun. My 0.02 EUR. SF [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: learn java and object oriented programming. go to sun.com and start reading the java docs. go to www.bruceeckel.com and read his java book. do a search on any job sites. a ton more work for java than oracle. people who can do both are in demand. From: Mladen Gogala Date: 2003/12/17 Wed PM 01:49:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Eli! te and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Stephane Faroult INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
RE: Career Advice
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, 18 December 2003 11:34 To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice Perl: Since you're working with Oracle, if you were to buy only one book, you might consider: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/oracleperl A copy of which has just landed on my desk. Much kudos to yourself and Andy. Ciao Fuzzy :-) -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Grant Allen INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Viktor My suggestion is to go for Perl as the quick win and impress your new boss. Perl also tends to be more useful for DBAs. Learning Java can be a more long-term proposition. First, you need to have a strong understanding of object-oriented design. We have trained developers in Java, and it hasn't been a quick learn for them. Based on what I've seen, I would push for Java training. Also, before you tear into Java, you may want to get a basic understanding of how the web stuff like HTML works. Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 6:24 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Let's take this topic into a more concrete scenario. New boss, company reorg, cross-training is enforced and now DBA'S's are going to be split into development groups. Need to learn Perl(looking forward to it actually!!!) and Java. Books, web sites, docs - all these material is great. But what if you're expected to learn fast and I can learn quickly, but still, do you guys have some advice on how can one express teach himself. Managing expectation is one thing I need to talk with boss about. Surely I would not't want to be overwhelmed with stuff at the beginning. But at the same time I am kinda excited about picking up on Java and Perl. The questions is what are the tricks and tips for learning on a fast track? Thanks! Viktor Stephane Faroult [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Believe somebody who first learned SQL back in 83, it's too late for Java now. Run-of-the-mill skill. Any young grad will know it and will be less expensive. ERP would be a good bet, because people learn them at work, mostly. Now, would a company change be justified just for that? Probably not. As you said, you are hired for what you know, not what you want to learn. Grasp opportunities, learn whatever looks to you useful - and fun. My 0.02 EUR. SF [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: learn java and object oriented programming. go to sun.com and start reading the java docs. go to www.bruceeckel.com and read his java book. do a search on any job sites. a ton more work for java than oracle. people who can do both are in demand. From: Mladen Gogala Date: 2003/12/17 Wed PM 01:49:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting Stand By your man just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds of music, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you. On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Eli! te and they don't have as many customers - or should I say, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these products? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Stephane Faroult INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). _ Do you Yahoo!? Free http://us.rd.yahoo.com/slv/mailtag/*http://companion.yahoo.com/ Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services - To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: Career Advice
Dennis, Yes, my thinking is exactly the same. Before I get too much involved with Java (it will be better to taketraining for Java), I am going to sharpen up my skills with Perl. Should be easier to pick it up, and the learning curve won't be as steep. Every company reorg probably has more minuses that pluses. In our case the new wants the DBA's to participate in the development processes more like developers, which makes us more or less development DBA's. Writing code will be part of our job. Production DBA will do most of the trueadmin. tasks (unless he is out, then one of the dev. DBA's will pick thatup). But other than that, it looks like I am going to be more in the dev. world. Now I'll have to kick my lazy butt tolearn new stuff! Jared as always thanks! I've already thought about your book and it's now on order! What about books with basic development perspective? Thanks! Viktor DENNIS WILLIAMS [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ViktorMy suggestion is to go for Perl as the quick win and impress your newboss. Perl also tends to be more useful for DBAs. Learning Java can be a more long-term proposition. First, you need tohave a strong understanding of object-oriented design. We have traineddevelopers in Java, and it hasn't been a quick learn for them. Based on whatI've seen, I would push for Java training. Also, before you tear into Java,you may want to get a basic understanding of how the web stuff like HTMLworks.Dennis WilliamsDBALifetouch, Inc.[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message-Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 6:24 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LLet's take this topic into a more concrete scenario. New boss, companyreorg, cross-training is enforced and now DBA'S's are going to be sp! lit intodevelopment groups. Need to learn Perl(looking forward to it actually!!!)and Java. Books, web sites, docs - all these material is great. But what ifyou're expected to learn fast and I can learn quickly, but still, do youguys have some advice on how can one "express" teach himself.Managing expectation is one thing I need to talk with boss about. Surely Iwould not't want to be overwhelmed with stuff at the beginning. But at thesame time I am kinda excited about picking up on Java and Perl. Thequestions is what are the tricks and tips for learning on a fast track?Thanks!ViktorStephane Faroult <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:Believe somebody who first learned SQL back in 83, it's too late forJava now. Run-of-the-mill skill. Any young grad will know it and will beless expensive.ERP would be a good bet, because people learn them at work, mostly. Now,would a company change be justified just for that? Probably not. As yousaid, you are hired for what you know, not what you want to learn. Graspopportunities, learn whatever looks to you useful - and fun.My 0.02 EUR.SF[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: learn java and object oriented programming. go to sun.com and startreading the java docs. go to www.bruceeckel.com and read his java book. do a search on any job sites. a ton more work for java than oracle. peoplewho can do both are in demand. From: Mladen Gogala Date: 2003/12/17 Wed PM 01:49:25 EST To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: Re: Career Advice Have you ever considered a career in country music? Try getting "StandBy your man" just right and the rest will come. You have to learn both kinds ofmusic, country and western. May Jake and Elwood be with you.<BR! > On 12/17/2003 12:44:28 PM, Saira Somani-Mendelin wrote: As an applications analyst/junior dba, I feel I need to learn more but I'm not sure of the direction I should take, so I'm asking for advice. Should I become interested in Oracle Apps? Or should I learn another suite like SAP or Siebel or PeopleSoft? The difficulty is that my company does not use any of these. We use a smaller package by Tecsys called Eli! te and they don't have as many customers - or should Isay, as many customers with deep pockets. I know I can get my hands on a working copy of SAP, what about the others? I believe you can purchase an evaluation copy of Apps from the Oracle Store. Has anyone actually tried to train themselves on any of these product! s? Has anyone installed Apps at home for testing? Sorry if this question has been presented on the list before. Thanks, Saira -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net-- Author: Stephane FaroultINET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.comSan Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services-To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail messageto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and inthe message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You mayalso send the HELP command for other information (like subscribi
