Ever wanted to debug lobs, object types, XML docs in your IDE?

"Exotic" datatypes, like large objects, object types, XML documents, etc. are being used by more and more Oracle development teams. And those teams, of course, are using one of many different IDEs for PL/SQL, including Toad, SQL Navigator, PL/SQL Developer, SQL Developer, etc. 

These IDEs come with source code debuggers, but unfortunately Oracle's implementation of the Java Debug Wire Protocol (JDWP) comes with a number of limitations, including:

- CLOB: Only the first 511 characters are shown.
- BLOB: Only the first 510 bytes are shown.
- XMLTYPE, ANYDATA, ANYDATASET, ANYTYPE: No value is shown.

If you'd like to see Oracle address these limitations in the upcoming 12c version, check out my PL/SQL Obsession blog for details.

Is it Onion or is it Science?

I hope that you are aware of the Onion, a hilariously satirical newspaper and website. It continually amazes me how funny and sharp they can be, week after week.

For example:

Obama Openly Asks Nation Why On Earth He Would Want To Serve For Another Term

Citing three years of exhausting partisan politics, constant gridlock in Congress, and an overall feeling that the entire nation has "completely lost it," President Barack Obama openly asked a campaign-rally crowd Tuesday why he'd want to serve another term as president of "this godforsaken country."

"My fellow Americans, I come to you today to ask, why?" Obama said to 1,200 people gathered inside a gymnasium at Taylor Allderdice High School. "Why can't our congressional leaders work together to create jobs? Why can't Wall Street ever be held accountable? And most important, why on God's green earth would I voluntarily subject myself to this nonsense for another four years?"

and how about this:

Scrunch time: The peculiar physics of crumpled paper

"WHEN you throw out your Christmas wrapping paper this year, don't tell Narayanan Menon and Anne Dominique Cambou. You'll be throwing away examples of their painstaking research.That's because they study the physics of crumpled balls of paper, which contain deeper mysteries than you might expect."

and from the same article:

"Despite technological advances, it is still extremely difficult to peer inside a simple scrunched-up paper ball with any detail."

Well, OK, actually, that second article is from New Scientist, a quirky science magazine from the UK. It's generally a fascinating read, delving into all sorts of scientific curiosities, and never shying away from the areas where science and society/politics intersect. I urge you to check out the website and even subscribe.