Obsessed with Oracle PL/SQL

What? You didn't know that? :-) On a recent blog post, I received this comment: Thanks for the video. You've answered my question and given us lots to talk over. Now, do you have any advice on getting those resistant to change, crusty, old, developers to buy in to change? My immediate response was: incentives and fun. So now it is time to elaborate a bit. First of all, the hardest part of programming is not learning new features or absorbing the syntax of a programming language. After all, learning such a language is waaaaay easier than learning a human language - primarily because when we write code we are communicating with something that "thinks" quickly but is not particularly "smart." It, the computer however you want to define that these days, does what we tell it to do. Really, it does - no matter how many sci-fi movies you've watched that indicate otherwise. Since a computer isn't very smart, we have to communicate with it using...

A month ago, I received this email: Hi Steven, just to inform you that your "PL/SQL Obsession" page is out of work, http://www.toadworld.com/sf answers "Page Not Found"  Maybe Dell has blocked you? So I thought I would post a note on my blog to clarify matters. For many years, Quest and then Dell "hosted" my online PL/SQL resources at  http://www.toadworld.com/sf : I had lots of fun with that page, and am especially grateful to Steve Hilker for helping me keep it current and useful for thousands of PL/SQL developers. We came up with what I still feel is the best way to describe my relationship to PL/SQL: PL/SQL Obsession And for more than a year after I joined Oracle (in March 2014), Dell and I agreed that we should keep the PL/SQL Obsession site intact, with all of my content, even that which they did not own. But all things - good or otherwise - must come to an end. It's confusing to have me working at Oracle but still seemin...

Yes, yes, I know: another post with little or nothing to do with PL/SQL. My apologies. But remember, I do offer a daily tip on Twitter:  @sfonplsql .  videos on Practically Perfect PL/SQL and PL/SQL Channel resources at the Oracle PL/SQL page [well not me but....] Bryn Llewellyn's PL/SQL and EBR Blog weekly quizzes on the PL/SQL Challenge .  So please don't say "But what have you done for me lately?" :-) 'Cause then I would feel bad that this post is about me asking you  for something. I am involved here at Oracle with both content generation (see above) and working on community-oriented apps that make it easier for you to access expertise and resources on Oracle Database developer-related topics, including: Ask Tom LiveSQL PL/SQL Challenge Oracle Learning Library OTN SQL-PL/SQL forum As many of you are probably aware, content is great stuff ("Content is King"), but and especially for technology-related content, it can get "sta...

Oracle Corporation is a massive enterprise - over 130,000 employees, big shiny headquarters, hundreds of products (software and  hardware), etc. - and Oracle Open World reflects that massiveness. I suppose there may be some people who can ingest all of that and make sense of it (besides our top executives, for whom that is in part their job), but I tend to focus lots more narrowly in the Oracle Database world and the developer community that thrives around that flagship product. My Personal Highlight: Announcing Winners of the 2015 Devvys So first and foremost the highlight of OOW15 was our YesSQL event, in which we announced the winners of the 2015 Devvys - the Oracle Database Developer Choice Awards . Andy Mendelsohn was kind enough to make room in his busy schedule to stop by, share some stories (this year, he focused on Big Data SQL, and how that evolved so smoothly out of existing technologies) and let everyone know how important application developers are to the continuin...