Mel sent this to me yesterday:
After following you for many years, talking to you at Oracle World and yourhome on one occasion in the '90's I am happy to report that I AM RETIRED. No more Oracle, Peely-Squeely or troubleshooting response times. I had gone from doing rpt (forerunner of Reports) all the way through the latest Forms and Reports (I started with Oracle 5). I will miss all of it.
Ooooh, I am soooo jealous. :-)
And a few weeks ago, a player at the PL/SQL Challenge wrote:
Can you sell me a book please? I just took, and probably failed miserably, an assessment for a dream-job. I am a generalist in PL/SQL, and just do not have exposure to many of the higher level PL/SQL packages. The assessment reminded me of your quizzes. Your quizzes are OK for learning this sort of stuff but sort of out of context; I would like more of an overview and I don't want just documentation, but explanations of why you would want to use such and such a package (as opposed to using some other package).
So I sent this player a link to my books, and a week later I received this note:
Last week I asked you to sell me a book. After reading the first 100 pages of your book covered in ants, I have decided you should put a link up "about yourself" and then have links to your new books on amazon. Your book is really great. Really readable!
I really liked this last note. I don't want to sound boastful, but O'Reilly has sold several hundred thousand copies of the "ants book" (aka, Oracle PL/SQL Programming). So it's kind of cute that this reader urges me to get the word out "about myself" and my books.
1 comment:
Hello Steven,
It just happened that I discovered your blog and sometimes I visit it to read your thoughts, including the non-PL/SQL ones :)
So, those who started with Oracle5 are already retiring ... and you say you are jealous ?
I can't believe it :) :)
I did have almost the same "Oracle itinerary" that your friend Mel just mentioned ... so is it really the time to retire ?
Does this really mean that those who started with the "one digit" Oracle versions have "nothing more to add" to this world ?
PL/SQL Challenge just gave me a so nice opportunity to feel younger and still worth of something ...
but sometimes I really "feel the train just running away" and leaving me behind ...
The daily 100% correctness means a lot, and, then, sometimes, comes the punishment for incredible mistakes that you are never going to forgive to yourself ...
Can one really say "No more Oracle"
after having dedicated practically the whole life to it ?
Somtimes, when I think about retirement, I keep promising myself that this will not happen wihout having a database at hand and continuing to learn and play the PL/SQL Challenge, even from the next world :) :)
So, you can really be proud of having changed a few people's lives :) :) :)
Best Regards & Enjoy the football !
Iudith Mentzel
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