Category: Tech

One thing about working in the database industry:  you don’t work in a vaccum.  By that, I mean you generally don’t work solely on data issues, since data does not exist for its own sake, but rather for the sake of supporting a business, government agency, or some other organization.  Data engineers who work with business systems and large scale enterprise applications must eventually learn about the businesses they work with, and in great detail. Lucky for me, too, since personally I just happen to be fascinated by just about everything.

Case in point:  the recent advances in something called 3D printing.  If you’ve never seen it in work before, the second video below won’t make any sense, so do yourself a favor and watch the first video, and see how computer-aided design systems can directly “print” fully functional three-dimensional objects, including tools, with moving parts, all at once:

Next, if you want to see how 3D printing can go beyond a simple crescent wrench, take a look at this stunning application:

That second video is what prompted me to blog about this subject today.

It’s remarkable enough to imagine that a space travel team could theoretically “manufacture” any tool they need in space with a minimum of a 3D printing machine and a supply of resin, plus the right software and knowledge of how to create whatever tool is required.

But in the second video, we see how a prosthetic manufacturer is challenged to deliver a significantly smaller set of complex prosthetics than what he has previously created. In short order, he is able to scale down the design, and switch to a lighter material that won’t burden the patient, and he completes and delivers the devices almost instantaneously – and is able to continue delivering scaled prosthetics as the patient – a growing child – requires larger devices over time. And he does it all in a virtual instant, via mail order.

Remarkable.

The most excellent tech blog Gizmodo published an article about three weeks ago titled Hidden Government Scanners Will Instantly Know Everything About You From 164 Feet Away.  In it, Gizmodo states that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is working on equipment that will be ready in two years, and will be “capable of detecting every tiny trace of any substance on your body, from specks of gunpowder to your adrenaline levels to a sugar-sized grain of cannabis to what you had for breakfast.”

This isn’t new technology, but it’s faster – “ten million times faster” than existing technology.  It’s also mobile and rack-mountable.

In other words, they’ll be able to scan everyone who walks through airports, shopping malls, office buildings, subway stations, and really – just any random place – without the individual being subject to lines, or even giving their approval necessarily.

For those of s who are tired of long lines in airport security, this is a great thing.

And for those of us who are law abiding, and who live under a government that responds to the will of the people and is not tyrannical, this is also a good thing.

For others … not so much.

And for those of us who are obsessed with technology, the potential for something like this, and available to existing automated systems, is … very very interesting.

 

 

From Computerworld: Microsoft warns of critical Oracle code bugs in Exchange:

Oracle patched the vulnerabilities in its “Oracle Outside In” code libraries as part of a massive update on July 17 that fixed nearly 90 flaws in its database software.

Be warned.

 

Below is the full text of the acknowledgements from my book OCA Oracle Database SQL Expert Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-047).  It mentions a great many people to whom I am very grateful, but alas leaves a few out.  I’ll mention them in later posts.

As with most large endeavors, this book was the product of many people!

Tim Green, the acquisitions editor, is a man of vision, patience, persistence, and insight. McGraw-Hill is lucky to have him, and I was lucky to get to work with him and his excellent team on this project. Meghan Riley is the perfect combination of professionalism, grace, and delightfulness, and is a joy to work with. Molly Sharp of ContentWorks is focused, thorough, and pleasantly fun to work with as well – the whole team has just been fantastic. Also thanks to fellow Oracle Press author Kevin Loney for a key nugget or two of information along the way.

A huge and very special thank you to my technical editor, Alistair Grieve, who was meticulous, quick, creative, and extremely knowledgeable – I can’t think of enough superlatives to use for him here. Let me give you an idea of how detailed oriented Alistair is: he caught a typo in chapter 6 in the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. More than that, he was technically brilliant and contributed a great deal to making this book better. Kudos to Tim Green and the other good folks at McGraw-Hill for bringing Alistair on the team.

Other great members of the McGraw-Hill team who have supported this effort in one way or another: Wendy Rinaldi, Lisa McClain, Jody McKenzie, Melinda Lytle, Robert Campbell, Athena Honore, Ross Doll, Lydia Griffey.

To my very many friends and colleagues who I’ve had the pleasure of working and/or serving with over the years at various locations and in various capacities, at such enterprises as Sysorex, ISC, MAOP, EOUG, Boeing, ORI, ARC, the NPC, and elsewhere, including some who are still at those places, and some who have gone on to other adventures, there is no way I could name everyone here who has been instrumental or contributed something important to my life and work. A partial list includes: Jeremy Judson, Salam Qureishi, Nadir Ali, Wendy Loundermon, Athar Javaid, Dan Doherty, Ed Wolfe, Ashley Rubeck, Cindy Shiflett, Phil Hasse, Dave Gagner, Jon Feld, Jay Nielsen, Steve Smith, Edgar Kline, Kathy Gardos, James Perry, Terri Buckler, Mark Tash, Adhil Shaikh, Monique Tribolet, Ed Spinella, Dino Merkezas, Bert Spencer, Steve Vandivier, Karen Owens, Mike Ault, Graham Seibert, Vince Adams, Bob Schnetter, Dave Salmen, Oscar Wood, Josh Parreco, Craig Kasold, Jennifer Blair, Dave Cooper, Ted Cohen, Steve Cummings, Jimmy Smith, Peter Dube, Ruthie Washburn, Kim Curl, Robin Ruth, Renee Battle, Danny Duong, Hung Nguyen, Drew Daffron, Ken O’Neal, Kim Miller, John Lauder, Mark O’Donnell, Bob Smout, Todd Stottlemeyer, Paul Leslie, David Wise, Dan Rutherford, Laura Taylor, Laura Setliff, Trin Tranh, Wilson Dizard, Lyle Beall, Paul Elliott, John Metelsky, Don Knight, Art Garrison, Marshall Cohen, Mark Wojno, Bill McCarren, Jonathan Salant, Tammy Lytle, Rick Dunham, John Cosgrove, Doug Harbrecht, Audrey Ford, Tim Aquilino, Debbie Beebe, Bill Simpson, Annette Taylor, Fred Wills, Carlesza Harris, Gardner McBride, Cindy McBride, Jim Flyzik, Bob Guerra, John Coffey, Lyle Beall, Bobbie Beall, and to three who are no longer with us: Aaron “Eppie” Epstein, Martin Kuhn, and Gordon Gustin.

To Dan Hinkle, my business associate of many years, who opened up many doors and many opportunities – a special thank you to him, and of course to Brenda.

Thank you to Bianca Canales for being a great friend, and for providing some key insight at important points in my career; and to Marlene Theriault for special encouragement and very helpful suggestions years ago, which I still benefit from today.

To my very many fantastic Oracle students over the years, too numerous to mention here – each of my classes has had a distinctly wonderful and rewarding personality, and each individual student brings a unique set of experiences and observations to the task of learning, all of which have been fun for me and rewarding to work with, and I’ve benefited from having met you all – as iron sharpens iron.

A special thank you to my very dear friends Todd and Cindy Bauchspies, and also Mike and Kate Waters, and their gifted and talented sons James and Gavin, and to Phil and Charlotte Jones and Chester and Stephanie and Kenny and Karen, and Harriet Marin and Joe Motz, and of course to Bill Bryant – a huge thanks to all of you for being so patient with my occasional long periods of self-imposed exile while I work on projects such as this book – and still being my friends afterward!

A special thank you to Jim Bauchspies, who is like a second father to me in many ways, both personally and professionally, and to Georgine, who gave me many a home-cooked meal and a warm welcome at just the right time. And to Roy Patterson for making my very first Oracle project a reality back in 1986.

A very special thank you to Lisa, my sweetheart, for being wonderful and especially encouraging!

To my mother Joan, the best mother anyone could possibly have, and to whom I dedicated my first book. She’s always been there for me, through thick and thin, with a song in her voice and a smile in her heart – Mom, you’re the best!

Thanks to my father Don, an accomplished engineer, and a practitioner of project management, who taught me the value of hard work and dedication, both in word and in deed. A published author in his own right, a consummate professional with a great sense of humor, and the person to whom I’ve dedicated this book.

I just read a great blog piece by legendary data guru Curt Monash, and it’s titled Why I’m so forwarding-leaning about Hadoop features. The bottom line:  Monash is encouraging Hadoop uses to err on the side of new features, and not worry so much about using earlier, more stable versions of Hadoop.  His reasoning is that, at this stage in the Hadoop product life cycle, the benefit provided by the latest features is greater than any benefit to product stability.

It’s good logic, of course, we expect no less from Monash.  He’s been publishing a number of excellent common-sense posts about Hadoop in the last few years – see Enterprise-ready Hadoop, including its link to Annoying Hadoop marketing themes that deserve to be ignored.  Curt’s a great voice of reason amid a lot of hype and bravado.

Curt first got my attention with his discussion about Google’s patent application for MapReduce, and the fact that Hadoop functionality is hardly new, and has long been doable in an Oracle environment.  His article titled More patent nonsense – Google MapReduce should be required reading for all data professionals with an interest in Hadoop solutions.

The bottom line:  the “big data” trend has merit, particularly for some specific, unique business cases, but there’s a tremendous amount of hype around them, and even Hadoop, at its core, depends on relational logic in order to be of any use.

In my book OCA Oracle Database SQL Expert Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-047), I mention the use of something called “dynamic SQL” on page 391. I’ve since received some email asking for more information about it. The concept I was referring to with the phrase “dynamic SQL” is simple: write software code to create SQL statements in real time, based on the logic within the script. A typical use in many websites today is to create some sort of code using PHP or Perl to display an HTML page, ask the user questions, and then issue a custom-written SQL statement to interact with the database accordingly. An example might be to create an HTML page that displays a form:

<html>
<head>
  <title>Sample Form</title></head>
<body>
  <h1>Click Display list of customers</h1>
  <form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="test.php">
  Choose order for displaying the results:
  <select name=parm_OrderBy>
    <option value="DESC" selected>Descending
    <option value="ASC">Ascending
  </select><br>
  <input type=submit value='Display Results'  />
  </form> 
</body>
</html>

 

The form might appear this way:

This HTML could then invoke a PHP script that looks something like this:

<? php

  ... receive incoming parameters ...

  $vQuery = "SELECT FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME FROM CUSTOMERS ORDER BY LAST_NAME"
  if (parm_OrderBy == "DESC")
    $vQuery .= " DESC";

  ... run query ...

?>

The idea is that the PHP script is bulding a text string in the $vQuery variable that may or may not include DESC after the ORDER BY, based on the value selected in the HTML form.

This is obviously just a very simple example.  You can use much more complex code structures to build a variety of SQL statements, including SQL statements that may or may not include joins, GROUP BY clauses, and more.  It’s just a matter of building text strings based on input, nothing more.

So that’s it!  Now you know what dynamic SQL is about.

Happy developing!