Friday, September 02, 2005
Oldie Hints and Tips
Just read Lisa's Oracle Newbie blog and saw she has some helpful tips for newbies. Tom Kyte had a similar set of suggestions on his blog a while ago. It got me thinking though. There ought to be a comparable set for experienced folk who take it upon themselves to offer help. I thought these might help. Newbie tips in Italics. Oldie Tips in bold.
State your problem clearly. On a forum I frequent you may get hit with a "Crystal ball broken today, please explain" if you don't state your problem clearly.
Ask for pertinent information - not a stack dump - you aren't employed by support
Explain what you want to do. Please include sample data and any errors you encounter.
explain why you are asking for more information. You know how it is when support just ask you to provide more traces when you've clearly explained the issue. Now you know how it feels.
Do not be offended when someone asks you what the business justification is. You may be trying to do something stupid, and we're just trying to figure out why.
Don't be offended when someone asks something apparently daft. They may be trying to apply their skills and knowledege to a situation they shouldn't. There are far fewer daft people, and far more rally odd situations than you have experienced.
Tell me what you've done already. Do you want me to assume you did a full backup before I tell you to drop a tablespace?
Read all of the posters questions and replies carefully. Maybe he already told you.
Please understand we do this for free. Sure, we learn how to solve problems in the process, but you get more out of this than we do.Getting upset with me just puts you on my ignore list.
Remember you do this for free and out of a sense of community. Acting like the grumpy old man from number 42 isn't what you got into this for. In any case, when you think you know more than the next guy - that's the day you stop learning
I don't care if your problem is URGENT!! to you. In fact, if you mark your message URGENT!!! I will probably ignore it. You DO have support, right?
When you decide to ignore something. Ignore it - don't reply only to say I'm not going to help you. How rude is that?
I guess a lot of what is being said to newbies boils down to, can you explain fully what you are trying to do, why you are trying to do it and why you think its a good idea? A lot of my advice consists of treat newbies with respect and care, think of the reputation someone well-known dbas have for frostiness and unhelpfulness, you don't want to add to their number right?
The only thing I'd add for the newbies is If you have an error message or error number, no matter how unintelligible it is - for goodness sake tell us.
2 Comments
State your problem clearly. On a forum I frequent you may get hit with a "Crystal ball broken today, please explain" if you don't state your problem clearly.
Ask for pertinent information - not a stack dump - you aren't employed by support
Explain what you want to do. Please include sample data and any errors you encounter.
explain why you are asking for more information. You know how it is when support just ask you to provide more traces when you've clearly explained the issue. Now you know how it feels.
Do not be offended when someone asks you what the business justification is. You may be trying to do something stupid, and we're just trying to figure out why.
Don't be offended when someone asks something apparently daft. They may be trying to apply their skills and knowledege to a situation they shouldn't. There are far fewer daft people, and far more rally odd situations than you have experienced.
Tell me what you've done already. Do you want me to assume you did a full backup before I tell you to drop a tablespace?
Read all of the posters questions and replies carefully. Maybe he already told you.
Please understand we do this for free. Sure, we learn how to solve problems in the process, but you get more out of this than we do.Getting upset with me just puts you on my ignore list.
Remember you do this for free and out of a sense of community. Acting like the grumpy old man from number 42 isn't what you got into this for. In any case, when you think you know more than the next guy - that's the day you stop learning
I don't care if your problem is URGENT!! to you. In fact, if you mark your message URGENT!!! I will probably ignore it. You DO have support, right?
When you decide to ignore something. Ignore it - don't reply only to say I'm not going to help you. How rude is that?
I guess a lot of what is being said to newbies boils down to, can you explain fully what you are trying to do, why you are trying to do it and why you think its a good idea? A lot of my advice consists of treat newbies with respect and care, think of the reputation someone well-known dbas have for frostiness and unhelpfulness, you don't want to add to their number right?
The only thing I'd add for the newbies is If you have an error message or error number, no matter how unintelligible it is - for goodness sake tell us.
2 Comments:
I think something a little more precise is necessary. Just saying "that is in the concepts guide" isn't any different than RTFM.
Links to relevant pages not only make newbies wonder about how they might find what they need in the docs, it makes a good reference for oldies, too. Don't worry about the lazy people, they'll get slapped down when it is too obvious what they are doing.
Feedback is necessary and useful, it doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, rude. Ignoring people can be rude too, and worse, counterproductive. Trolls should be ignored, of course.
There is a lot of monkey-see, monkey-do in the various fora, so there is value in simply posting as one likes to see posts.
Sometimes asking for things only support would ask for is educational for all involved. (And sometimes not, of course). We're throwing in a range of experiences and trying to be egalitarian about it, so we need to give some slack to everybody.
There are far fewer daft people, and far more rally odd situations than you have experienced.
Will someone please tell Fabian?
Word verification is "ocipwqxi", which looked like OCP something on first glance, with the weird font.
Links to relevant pages not only make newbies wonder about how they might find what they need in the docs, it makes a good reference for oldies, too. Don't worry about the lazy people, they'll get slapped down when it is too obvious what they are doing.
Feedback is necessary and useful, it doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, rude. Ignoring people can be rude too, and worse, counterproductive. Trolls should be ignored, of course.
There is a lot of monkey-see, monkey-do in the various fora, so there is value in simply posting as one likes to see posts.
Sometimes asking for things only support would ask for is educational for all involved. (And sometimes not, of course). We're throwing in a range of experiences and trying to be egalitarian about it, so we need to give some slack to everybody.
There are far fewer daft people, and far more rally odd situations than you have experienced.
Will someone please tell Fabian?
Word verification is "ocipwqxi", which looked like OCP something on first glance, with the weird font.
>>"Tom Kyte explained that really well in his Expert One on One book" or something similar would suffice.
I'd be wary of pointing someone to a book that isn't available on the web (i.e. be viewed on the web vs bought through Amazon) and costs real money. Whilst I'm sure that we all want to give Tom money for his pearls of wisdom, the person on the other end of the email exchange may be an impoverished student or graduate who cannot expense the book (there are a lot of companies who will happily fork over £100,000 for a piece of software but refuse to pay for a £10 book on how best to use it) and for whom the 50 quid (or equivalent in local currency) that Expert One on One costs may put a big hole in this month's budget. Melodramatic, sure, but also true (I've been that impoverished recent graduate trying to get the knowledge I need).
Another, possibly more genrally acceptable reason, is that books take time to arrive and eventually go out of print. You may have Expert One on One sitting on your book shelf next to your PC but if the person on the other end of the email exchange, who has just been landed with a problem at 16:52 on a wet Friday afternoon and been told that it's got to fixed by Monday morning or they're fired, doesn't it might be that they can't get it in time to save their job, or at all if Amazon are out of stock because the next edition is coming out next week.
Stephen
Post a Comment
I'd be wary of pointing someone to a book that isn't available on the web (i.e. be viewed on the web vs bought through Amazon) and costs real money. Whilst I'm sure that we all want to give Tom money for his pearls of wisdom, the person on the other end of the email exchange may be an impoverished student or graduate who cannot expense the book (there are a lot of companies who will happily fork over £100,000 for a piece of software but refuse to pay for a £10 book on how best to use it) and for whom the 50 quid (or equivalent in local currency) that Expert One on One costs may put a big hole in this month's budget. Melodramatic, sure, but also true (I've been that impoverished recent graduate trying to get the knowledge I need).
Another, possibly more genrally acceptable reason, is that books take time to arrive and eventually go out of print. You may have Expert One on One sitting on your book shelf next to your PC but if the person on the other end of the email exchange, who has just been landed with a problem at 16:52 on a wet Friday afternoon and been told that it's got to fixed by Monday morning or they're fired, doesn't it might be that they can't get it in time to save their job, or at all if Amazon are out of stock because the next edition is coming out next week.
Stephen
