PL/SQL Challenge Hits 800 Players!

On Thursday, Oracle sent out its Database Application Developer Newsletter and included this paragraph:

Take the PL/SQL Challenge
Oracle ACE Director Steven Feuerstein has started up a new contest for PL/SQL Developers: the PL/SQL Challenge. The Challenge is free and simple: you play the quiz each weekday, exercising your knowledge of the language. Every three months, the top-ranking players compete in a quarterly championship to award first, second and third prizes. But that's not all: Every month, Steven will raffle off other prizes to anyone who played the quiz that month. So visit the PL/SQL Challenge and start playing. You've got nothing to lose and lots to gain!

Well....that worked out very nicely. Over 300 people registered at the PL/SQL Challenge and today we broke through the 800 player "barrier". Very exciting!

Thanks, Oracle!

Come Monday, players will also see many enhancements to the website, including improved rankings information and the ability to invite friends to play the PL/SQL Challenge. 

If you are a PL/SQL developer and you are not yet playing the PL/SQL Challenge, pay us a visit and check it out. You will have fun and could win some excellent prizes. Here's what a few people have recently said about the PL/SQL Challenge:

"I love the PL/SQL Challenge. It is getting our team talking about PL/SQL on a daily basis."

"I wait eagerly every morning for the next question. It's become a part of my warm-up ritual at work, in addition to making tea."
 

Brian Daniels Graduates from Averett University

I have just come back from a wonderful weekend in Danville, Virginia, home of Averett University. My wife, Veva, organized a family reunion/graduation celebration there, because our nephew, Brian Daniels, graduated from Averett on Saturday with a Bachelors of Science. Congratulations, Brian!

Brian is the first member of his family to attend, much less, graduate, from college.

He made this possible through dedication, discipline, hard work (hard, hard work) and a quiet strength that kept him going through many obstacles. And, of course, the unswerving support of his family.

Brian attended Averett on a football scholarship and I hope to soon announce the next step in his incredible journey regarding Brian and the game (or should we say "business") of football.

After the graduation ceremony, we held a party for Brian at Mary's Diner that was very tasty, exciting and moving. Many friends and relatives spoke of their pride in his accomplishments, and the traits that have made him both so successful and so loved.

Brian is a born leader and a true friend and role model to many. We all look forward to his future accomplishments.

Shortcut to expertise?

I received this request today:

"I want to learn PL/SQL but doubt I can; I want to understand,write and fix other's code, but where do I begin? I do not like sticking to code for hours; my head hurts. But I would like to go from complete ignorance to be like you!"

That set back in my Swopper chair for a moment. He wants to go from complete ignorance to being "just like Steven" without sticking his head deep inside code for hours.

Hmmm....

Well, first of all, to anyone wanting to learn PL/SQL: do not doubt yourself! You can do it. PL/SQL is a relatively easy language to learn, especially compared to Java.

Second, I don't think are a whole lot of shortcuts you can take. That is, if you want to be an expert programmer, you will stick your head into code for hours. But:

1. Take lots of breaks! You don't have to get headaches.

2. Certainly learning from obsessive people like me can accelerate you along that learning curve to expertise.

In fact, you may want to consider attending one (or more) of my Fast Track PL/SQL webinars, sponsored by Quest. There is one more this month, and then we will likely plan another series soon.

Beyond that, I offer the following advice to "newbies" and others seeking assistance on PL/SQL:

http://tahiti.oracle.com - Oracle documentation available online
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/pl_sql/index.html - OTN PL/SQL information
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/columns/plsql/index.html - links to articles on OTN
http://oracle-developer.net - detailed explorations into various PL/SQL topics by Adrian Billington
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jsp?forum=75 - the PL/SQL forum at Oracle
http://asktom.oracle.com - the amazing Ask Tom column

In addition, there are a number of "beginner books", including:
 
Learning Oracle PL/SQL http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001803 (I am a co-author on this one)
Oracle PL/SQL for Dummies http://www.amazon.com/Oracle-SQL-Dummies-Michael-Rosenblum/dp/0764599577

Finally, I also encourage you to play the PL/SQL Challenge ( www.plsqlchallenge.com ) - a daily PL/SQL quiz with cash and other prizes!

Challenging myself and others

I am a compulsive workaholic. That is the only explanation for my inability to stop coming up with new ideas and trying new things. My latest "little project" is the PL/SQL Challenge, a daily PL/SQL quiz that culminates quarterly in a championship playoff. Top prize: $1000 USD. Not a bad prize, simply for knowing PL/SQL, right?

Ah, so easy to come up with ideas, so challenging to deliver them as functional products or websites.

First, I had to design a database to hold all my content and serve it up to consumers. Then I needed to create the content for the quiz: hundreds (and hopefully eventually thousands) of questions and answers (and have an application built to allow me to do that). My friend, Joel Finkel, was instrumental in enabling this earliest phase of the PL/SQL Challenge.

Next, more or less, I needed to have the public site built in which people could take the quizzes, see their rankings, and so on. Chris Shaw of Shaw Marketing came up with the logo and overall web design. From there, my fine friends at Apex Evangelists (Sumneva), most especially John Scott and Paul Broughton, committed many, many hours of their lives to building, tweaking and then deploying the website. Gentlemen, I am forever in your debt.

Recognizing the limitations of my incredibly narrow specialization in PL/SQL (and thus not even having a solid grasp of the total Oracle technology stack), I also decided to partner on this whole initiative with Finn Ellebaek Nielsen. Finn is an outstanding Oracle generalist, who has also decided to focus on and promote automated testing solutions for PL/SQL and Oracle. We'd been working together on Quest Code Tester for awhile, and he was a natural choice to work with me on the PL/SQL Challenge.

And this is how I have managed to drag several more human beings into the endless, mad and ever-expanding churn of activity that defines my professional life. Sorry about that, Finn and Apex Evangelists! I hope there are not major regrets (yet).

And now what I need are players, lots of players. During the first two days of the Challenge, we had over 400 people visit and answer the quiz each day. That's a fine start, but just a start.

If you are a PL/SQL developer or work with PL/SQL in any way, you owe it to yourself (and me, that's right. You owe me - it's the least you can do after I sacrificed so much of my life to help PL/SQL developers. Aw, just kidding. I didn't sacrifice. I benefited!) to visit PLSQLChallenge.com and give it a try.

Win prizes, see your name "up in lights" on the website demonstrating your proficiency in PL/SQL. Show same to your manager. Get a promotion and a raise. Succeed professionally beyond your wildest dreams - all by playing the PL/SQL Challenge.

Well, maybe not. But it's certainly a possibility.

The PL/SQL Challenge is open for business

At 00:01 UTC 8 April 2010 (7 PM Chicago time, 7 April), the PL/SQL Challenge will be open for business - which means that PL/SQL developers can now register or login and then take their first ever daily PL/SQL quiz.

Why would someone do that? Because, among other things, you could win $1000 in our quarterly championship. Not bad for knowing some stuff about PL/SQL, don't you think?

You might also want to play the PL/SQL Challenge to demonstrate your expertise to the world. User accounts are ranked publicly (don't worry, you don't have to use your real name if you don't want to).

Give it a try. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes of your day. Why not have a bit of fun as you wrestle with - and solve - serious and complex application challenges?

So welcome to the PL/SQL Challenge and best of luck in the competition!

Oh frabjous joy, a victory!

I don't think very much of the health care reform bill. The insurance companies lie at the heart of the problem with the "health care industry." This bill means that we will fork over massive amounts of our tax dollars directly to those companies as part of "mandatory insurance."


Having said that, I am so glad that Obama won this battle and got his bill passed. If he had failed, I think that could have been a very early death knell for his presidency. What could he have gotten done after losing this confrontation with the No Party?


Now he has political momentum on his side - especially with the quick follow up of an agreement with Russia on nuclear weapons. Hopefully the fall elections will now not lead to the House or Senate falling to the Republicans (they have been purely and utterly disgusting throughout this entire period).


Go, Obama, go!

I Support Hillary Clinton

There I said it. That wasn't so hard.

But why did I say it, and what do I mean? Because I just read the following in Haaretz:

"In a telephone call to Netanyahu last week, Clinton laid out U.S. expectations from Israel including a rollback to the housing plan, a gesture of good faith to the Palestinians and an express statement that all issues dividing Israel and the Palestinians, including the fate of divided Jerusalem, remain part of the negotiations."

And it struck me: this is a really amazing moment. Our Secretary of State is telling Israel it has to explicitly accept that Jerusalem is still a negotiable issue (this is, formalistically, the case, in terms of the state of "peace negotiations", but the reality is that the Government of Israel states over and over again that Jerusalem will not be dividied - and is the capitol of Israel). This is an incredibly explosive issue among the hard-liners in Israel, a red line of their own, and could bring down the government.

I am stunned to see where this row over settlements has gone. Perhaps if Netanyahu and his truly fanatical, extremist coalition members hadn't been utterly disrespectful, disdainful really, in the way that they treated Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, there wouldn't be so much push-back. But they got careless, which is understandable. They hadn't been challenged in such a long time. The Israeli leadership has became casually arrogant.

And this is just the latest in a series of demonstrations of their arrogance since Obama was elected President.

Remember that Israel invaded Gaza in January 2009 and waged a brutal war against, officially, Hamas, but more accurately a trapped civilian population? The Israeli Defense Forces (considered one of the most competent in the world) killed hundreds of children. Think about that one for a moment. That is a fact. But my point here is actually more that they did this awful thing right on the eve of Obama's inauguration. As Obama was preparing to become the first President of color in history, Israel was killing Palestinian children and destroying the infrastructure of one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

Predictably, Israel pulled out of Gaza just days before the Inauguration, thereby avoiding a direct collision with Obama. Whew, that was a close one - but, still, a real slap in the face to Obama. Since then Obama said "No settlements, just stop it." And Netanyahu's administration just mocked him and ignored him, with words and actions.

And now here they are, their backs up against the proverbial wall, with no escape route. Suddenly, they will have to make a real sacrifice to demonstrate their commitment to the peace process. Namely, they will have to admit to the possibility that they might have to accept a divided Jerusalem. That's it. Doesn't seem like much, but I am not at all convinced Netanyahu can do this and still keep his government intact. 

Maybe someday soon President Obama will even tell Israel that it must join the IAEA and allow its nuclear weapons facilities to be investigated and monitored, like all other nuclear states.

Now that would be a signal day, a day to finally say to ourselves: perhaps there can be a peaceful and reasonably just solution to this conflict.

In the meantime, Hillary Clinton will be speaking at the upcoming AIPAC conference. Again, from the Ha'aretz article:

"Clinton said she expects to see Netanyahu in Washington next week, where both are to address the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee."

Clinton may possibly be facing an extremely hostile audience at the AIPAC event, which is also startling to contemplate. And there will be enormous pressure on her and Obama to back down. She needs our help.

It seems to me that all the peace groups, like Jewish Voice for Peace, Brit Tzedek, American Jews for a Just Peace, AFSC, the massive End the Occupation coalition, you name it, should be getting together to organize the biggest possible support march for Hillary Clinton outside the AIPAC event.

That should be the single focus of the gathering: Support Hillary Clinton. Assuming her position hasn't by then changed. Support what she is calling for. Keep it simple and direct. Keep it pro-our government, not anti-Israel or anti- anything else. And if it could get really big, it could give Clinton the backup she needs to speak with a righteous voice.

To face Israel down at this critical juncture.

To change history.

C'mon peace and justice activists, organizations, coalitions: this is why you are in existence. To take moments like this to activate all the people who are hungry and frustrated but have never had a focus that could make a difference.

This could really make a difference.

Beta Testing Starts for the PL/SQL Challenge!

The PL/SQL Challenge is a daily quiz that culminates every three months in a championship tournament to determine the most knowledgeable PL/SQL developers in the world. You could win cash, O'Reilly Media books and other goodies - but only if you play!

From March 15 to March 26, we will be running a beta test of the PL/SQL Challenge website - and I hope you will help us. Visit beta.plsqlchallenge.com, register and start playing (use real registration information - it will be valid for the real PL/SQL Challenge as well). A link to instructions for beta testing is right on the home page. Cruise around the website and let us know if anything should be fixed.

Please note that for the beta test we will be displaying nonsense Q&As (can't afford to "waste" any real questions!), so that part won't be very interesting. Please make sure to read the beta testing instructions before you get started.

During beta testing only, you are also allowed to register yourself more than once (but you will need to use a unique and valid email address). Why might you do this? So you can test the quiz-taking more than once per day - and be enrolled in our beta test raffle (giving away free copies of the ebook version of for each quiz you take, increasing your chances of winning!

PL/SQL Challenge Discount for ODTUG Kaleidoscope

There is going to be a fun, new activity at the Kaleidoscope conference this year:  "PL/SQL Developer, Quiz Thyself!" This is a live quiz on PL/SQL topics, co-sponsored by ODTUG and the PL/SQL Challenge. There will be cash and other prizes. It should be lots of fun.

ODTUG has generously agreed to offer a discount of $50 off the current registration fee for Kaleidoscope to developers who are playing the PL/SQL Challenge. Simply type "PLSQLCHALLENGE" into the Registration Code field as you go through the registration process. Early Bird Registration ends March 24, so register today for the lowest possible price.

What has Toyota actually proven here?

Interesting article in the Chicago Tribune today: "Toyota rebuts claims of SIU professor: In webcast, consulting firm re-creates electronic glitch in other vehicle brands".

First, David Gilbert demonstrates to Congress a way to cause sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles.

Then Toyota countered his demonstration as follows: "Using similar methodology, engineers at Toyota's facility on Monday duplicated the results on camera in seven other vehicles, including a Chevrolet Malibu, Honda Accord and Ford Fusion. Officials said the results, though not maligning other manufacturers, show that the methodology was essentially flawed."

Gee, I don't know. It seems like you could just as legitimately conclude that the problems experienced by Toyota owners could well be showing up in other vehicles.

I must admit that as a programmer, it scares me to think that my safety (and the safety of my family members) when driving is so dependent on software.

Any pizza, any crust, any toppings, just $10? REALLY?

Pizza Hut is advertising (hard) its new recession-proof pricing: "Any piza. Any size. Any crust. Any toppings. Just $10." See? They say so right here:

 

But wait! Is that fine print at the bottom? Yes, it is! And what does it say?

"ADDITIONAL CHARGE FOR STUFFED CRUST PIZZA"

Now, I must admit: $10 for a pizza that is loaded up with a bunch of stuff is a good deal (unless you simply won't buy food at a place like Pizza Hut because it will also be loaded up with high fructose corn syrup and other "food products"). That's not what bothers me.

What really bothers me is the blatant manipulation and assumption that we are all rather dumb. They come up with a marketing line that is very powerful - but a lie. It's not "any pizza, any crust".

Why oh why can't everyone be as logical and straightforward and honest as a software programmer?

My idea for an iPhone app

I get kind of sad sometimes, watching people disappear into their mobile distraction devices. iPhones and their like certainly offer new opportunities for community and entertainment, but mostly it seems to me that they lead to isolation in one's physical context (aka, the real world) and lack of introspection.

So here is my idea for a truly useful iPhone app: Basta! (which means "Enough!" in Spanish)

Basta would allow you to request disabling of specific features of your iPhone (or all of it, just turn it into a black slate) for a given period of time.

Basta makes it easy for you to answer questions like: "Can I go 10 seconds without reading/writing texts?"

But the really exciting, Web 2.0 feature of Basta is that your friends (via Facebook, etc.) can challenge you to specific Basta restrictions: "I bet Steven can't go more than an hour without sending a tweet." and so on. All dares - proposed, accepted, denied and the results - are posted to your Facebook page and can be seen by others.

So you can build reputation and status around your ability, willingness, discipline to step away from devices and instead interact more with real live, breathing humans.

Or just watch more TV.

Anyway, that's my idea of a really great app!

An unknown Olympic athlete?

Sometimes I just have to laugh out loud at the media and the way things are reported. Consider this photo and tag line on the front page of the Chicago Tribune today:

 

 It says "Stunning run by an unknown - American Byron Wilson comes out of nowhere to snag the bronze in moguls."

What I find so odd about this is the idea that any of the athletes who are competing in the Olympics could be "unknown." You only get to the Olympics if you are the best of the best, verified through a multitude of contests. In fact, Wilson won the U.S. Championship in 2009 to secure his spot on the "B" OIlympics team, and was a former Junior World Champion.

The only way that any of these Olympic-quality athletes could be considered "unknown" is by the Tribune deciding that they weren't worth "knowing" - until they won a medal.

Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

On January 13, we buried my father, Sheldon Feuerstein. On January 25, we buried my sister, Laurie Feuerstein Walsh. It has been a horrible couple of months (December and January). I can only hope that the rest of 2010 is better for all of us.

I feel very strongly that both Dad and Laurie had health problems contributing to their deaths that came from the foods they ate and the toxic environments in which they, we all, lived (any urban environment saturates us with toxins). Those same foods are likely causing problems for the rest of us, too. I have lately been struck by how ridiculous it is that food has become such a complicated and treacherous affair, that we seem to need nutritionists and scientists and politicians to decide what is good for us to eat. Isn't that strange? Humans have been finding, growing, preparing and eating food for thousands of years - and surviving quite well, thank you - without all this "assistance." And in the US, where the nutritionists reign supreme, we are getting fatter and sicker with each year. Something is so deeply wrong with this picture.

Fortunately, I think the solution to this problem is very simple: "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

That is the mantra of a man named Michael Pollan. He has just published a book called Food Rules, which I urge you to purchase and read immediately (only $5 from Amazon!).  This small, very accessible book offers simple, practical advice regarding food that can help all of us regain control of our bodies and our health.

Here is what I have decided so far from reading this book: I am going to stop purchasing packed, processed food products (not the same as food) as much as possible. No more Ritz crackers (absolutely yummy with PBJ), no more ramen noodles (I love those with a generous helping of sauteed brussel sprouts).

NO MORE HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP at all. I will check every package. I am now convinced more than ever that that stuff is a poison (or at the very least a drug) that operates at a very deep level on our physiology, making us fat and sick.

If you are sick or you have a family member who is sick; if you are affected by any of the four "Western diseases" (obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes or cancer); if you simply don't feel all that great (low energy, acid reflux, etc.) - then please, please, take a serious look at a serious change to your diet. It could make all the difference.

In Loving Memory: Laurie (Feuerstein) Walsh, 1963 - 2010

My sister, Laurie Walsh, died on Saturday, January 23, 2010, at the age of 46. She was a sweet, generous, loving mother, wife, sister, daughter, aunt and friend. She leaves behind an 11 year old son (and light of her life) and a husband.

Over 150 people attended Laurie's funeral service on January 25, on a day of truly horrible weather (pouring rain and driving winds). The outpouring of love for Laurie was overwhelming. We, her family, always knew how special she was, but we had no idea how much she had touched the lives of so many others.

Here's how I see it: Laurie was a true American hero. She believed in and dedicated herself to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Life: Laurie did not have it easy. For the last ten years of her life, she was ill, fighting auto-immune diseases and other challenges. But she refused to let it stop her or dissuade her from doing the things she wanted and needed to do for her family and for herself. She was always cheerful and positive with friends and family. She was determined to live her life as fully as she could.

Liberty: Laurie was her father's daughter. She did not want to depend on others, whether physically or financially - and like her father she was very stubborn. What this meant was that Laurie was always ready and willing to pay a long term price (with her medicines, for example) so that in the short term she could keep going, stay functional, maintain as normal as possible a life for her son.

And then...the "long term" became the now...and she paid the ultimate price.

Pursuit of happiness: Laurie was all about love, especially love of children, love of being with children, taking care of children, making children laugh and making sure they knew how special they were, each and every one. But there were two people in the world who were the very wellspring of happiness for Laurie: her son and her husband. I am so thankful that Laurie met her husband and that her son came into this world to give intense purpose and focus to Laurie's life.

Laurie struggled with learning in conventional ways in school, but she was an incredibly determined fighter - once she set an objective for herself, she never let up until she achieved her objective. And so it was that she graduated with a B.S. in microbiology from Stonybrook University on Long Island and took a job as a medical technologist and phlebotomist at NYU Medical Center. Her friend Susan told us that the doctors at NYU would seek out Laurie to do the testing for their patients because she was so competent and dependable.

When she became pregnant, she had to quit the job and always missed it greatly. She could have gotten the job back, but it would have required working nights and/or weekends, and she refused to compromise on spending time with her son. Her son arrived early and required lots of diligent mothering, from which Laurie never shirked. And from her son's birth to Laurie's death, children (first and foremost her son, of course) became the central theme of Laurie's time and effort.

Laurie was the president of the Parent's Association at her son's school, ran the Scholastic book program, and volunteered for any and every job. She taught herself how to use the computer and Internet to make cards and menus for events, keep track of payments and volunteers, and so much more. Her friends begged her to do less, to take it easy, but she refused with indignation to let up in any way.

Laurie worked as a teacher's assistant at the Central Queens Y, surrounding herself with children - and every single one of them was special to her, was greeted with a big smile. One teacher told me how a parent would arrive with a child who was upset, hysterical with crying, her nose running - a real mess. Kind of disgusting - but not to Laurie. She would welcome that child as if no one in the world could ever make her happier, as if she would rather do nothing else than wipe that kid's nose and give a big hug.

As a Feuerstein, Laurie inevitably harbored strong creative inclinations. She did a lot of drawing when she was young, but as an adult she found her artistic medium of choice in scrapbooking. She made the most wonderful scrapbooks, and she made everything from scratch - no shortcuts for her! She also loved to take photographs - of family events, of activities at school, of (more than anything and anyone else) her son. Shelley, a teacher for whom Laurie worked, told us that Laurie had a special gift: she could capture in her photos the inner life of a child, that you could see in her photos what a child was thinking, feeling, hoping for their lives.

[I hope to be able to post these photos and also scrapbook pages on the Internet at some point so we can all appreciate her work.]

My father died on January 9. He lived a long, full, life (for more about Sheldon Feuerstein click here) and while I miss him greatly, his death made sense in a way. It was part of a normal course of life and death.

But Laurie? I cannot make sense of Laurie's death. Her life was too much of a struggle, her death came much too soon and left too much pain and suffering in its wake.

But if she were here now, reading this, she would scoff at me. She would tell me that you play with the cards you are dealt and you make the most of what you are given in life. So that is what we will do: make the most of and with the life of her smart, funny son with a big, bright smile.

And, you know, I find that I can sum up Laurie's life in one word: love.

She was all about love: giving it in great abundance, taking it from others in every possible moment and form, shining her incredible smile on the children around her, making them feel special - and loved.

Laurie Feuerstein Walsh - we loved you and we will always miss you.

[Laurie was a member of Young Judea and greatly enjoyed a school year spent in Israel as part of that program. We ask that donations in her memory be made to Hadassah's Young Judea program.]

In loving memory: Sheldon Feuerstein, 1929 - 2010

My father, Sheldon Feuerstein died, on Saturday, January 9, 2010 from heart failure, at the age of 80.

Dad leaves behind his wife of 53 years, Joan; sister, Lilyan; five children, Jaye (Sela), Steven, Shari (DeUrso), Laurie (Walsh) and Nina (Rosenthal); nine grandchildren, Christopher, Eli, Masada, Timnah, Danielle, Benjamin, Markus, Liana and Sally. His family was the center of his life and we all - those above and many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends - mourn his passing, but celebrate a life well-lived.

Sheldon was born on October 7, 1929 to Jacob and Rose Feuerstein. He was the fourth of five children, the other four all sisters: Belle, Lilyan, Edy and Nancy (and what an odd coincidence that he had five children, and only one son among them). His father was an acclaimed pattern cutter (he would cut the original pattern of the dress, from which others were made) and my father idolized him.

Sheldon met his wife, Joan, at a dance, and that happened (according to legend) only because his friend, Stu, insisted that he come out to play. A short time later, they were married. And from then on, they were never apart. When Dad almost died in 2007 and went through a ( triple bypass + new valve - gall bladder ), Mom never left his side and helped him regain his life (and even improve on it in many ways). She was the center of his world, and he could never quite believe his luck ("I don't know why she puts up with me," he would say, shaking his head).

Sheldon was, professionally, a lawyer and CPA (certified public accountant). He practiced for decades in New York, and then relocated with Joan to Florida in 1996. As an accountant, he also taught himself computer programming, in particular RPG on an AS400, and built his own custom applications to manage his clients' financial affairs. That probably doesn't mean much to some of you, but his son (aka, me), a professional computer programmer, was way beyond impressed that he could do this!

He was a man of many interests and talents, and without a doubt he felt that his first calling, his great passion, was for art and not numbers. While he was not able to remain in the school, his acceptance into the Cooper Union School of Art as a young man remained a point of pride for him his whole life. He was an accomplished painter and his work graces the walls of Joan and Sheldon's home in Boynton Beach, as well as many other homes and some synagogues.

Sheldon approached the world with avid curiosity and was always interested to learn more, especially in the sciences. His passions (besides his family and his artwork) over the years ranged from chess and model airplanes, to photography (he built a dark room in his basement) and astronomy.

He played an active role in each synagogue of which he was a member, from the Suffolk Jewish Center in Deer Park , NY to Temple Torah in Boynton Beach. Israel, its land and people, figured large in his life. His several visits to Israel always excited him and never satisfied him. He longed to visit "one last time," but his health did not permit this.

Family was such a big part of his life. When he grew up and when we (my sisters and I) were growing up, the extended Feuerstein family (including Schuckmans, Knollers, Kleins and Gventers) would gather on a weekly basis or more frequently, for barbecues, holidays, birthdays and so on. It was a wonderful way to be raised, and I miss it. That was definitely one of the drawbacks to moving to Chicago: I moved away from most of my family in New York.

As a Dad to his only son, my father went to great lengths to both share his passions with me and also to ensure that I enjoyed other activities that he thought were important for me, though they might not be his forte. Namely: doing things outdoors. My dad was a bit of a desk potato and workaholic (gee, I guess that's where I got my "work ethic" from), but he enrolled me in the Cub Scouts, then Boy Scouts, and went on many camping trips with me. These were not his favorite thing to do, but he did them because he felt they were the right thing to do. I am so glad he did, and sad that I did not make more of an effort to do the like with my own children.

But I will always remember lying side by side in sleeping bags on a clear cold night in the woods, with snowflakes falling down over us, looking up at the stars. There had been some screw-up and so we didn't have a tent, but we didn't mind. It was wonderful.

My dad had a long (but not long enough), full (but there always room for more), successful life, surrounded by those he loved and loved himYou can see many photos of my dad, from all throughout his life, here. Perhaps best of all, you can enjoy his artwork here.

I miss him more than words can say.

Law and Order - Special Victims Unit - We're the Victims

My dad, unfortunately, is in the hospital (not the best way to celebrate the New Year, but there you have it), so I am in a hospital room watching what my Dad likes to watch on television, which turns out to be (among other things) Law and Order - Special Victims Unit.

And I am very alarmed.

I don't watch much television. Actually, just about the only television I watch on a regular basis is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. The main reason that I don't watch a lot of television is that it scares me. I "like" it too much. I watched lots of television when I was growing up and I find the television way too compelling. I start to watch it and I cannot stop.

Now that I have learned more about how the brain works, I understand better why I am like this - and it makes me even more frightened of television. Our brains are sponges, absorbing data (visual data, aural data, smells, tactile feedback), searching out patterns, and then making decisions (and taking actions) based on those patterns.

Television is a particularly powerful feeder of data, with its combination of sound and visuals, and specifically voices and faces, which humans have a hard time blocking out. So it seems to me that the stuff we watch on television can have an enormous impact on how we feel about ourselves and the world around us.

Which brings me back to Law and Order SVU - it is, of course, just one of countless police and forensic/crime programs proliferating on TV these days. And as I watched it here in the hospital, I found myself getting agitated. How could I not? Bloody scenes, highly dysfunctional, psychotic people, bad things happening to good people, tension, anger, grief....

[Just watched a young woman lie on the floor with a knife in her heart bleed to death.]

And I worry that anyone would want to watch these sorts of programs. What is it about humans that we would seek stimulation through the virtual brutalization of our fellow species members? What are we missing? A lack of purpose, send of excitement in our own dull lives? A "safe" connection to people who are hurting, as a way to assuage guilty feelings about our relatively comfortable existence?

Whatever it is, it doesn't feel very healthy to me. I think I will stick with science fiction.

Serena Williams beats out horse to win 2009 AP Female Athlete of Year

Serena Williams received 66 of 158 votes to be selected as the 2009 AP Female Athlete of the Year. I like Serena. I like to watch her play. I like to watch her curse at referees. So I checked out this article on the big news.

And I scanned through the article until my brain stopped short on this line:

"Zenyatta, the 5-year-old mare who capped her 14-0 career by becoming the first female horse to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, finished second for the AP honor — with 48 fewer votes than Williams."

Yes, that's right. They rank human beings and horses (and dogs and all other sporting creatures, I presume) in the same poll. That doesn't seem right, does it?

And poor Kim Clijsters, another tennis player. She ranked third - behind a horse!

An amazing way to visit Prague without leaving your computer

Prague is one of my favorite cities - my friends at Oracle (and now beyond Oracle - a "shout out" to Petra, Martin, Roman, Monique, Lenka...) have always taken such good care of me; the sidewalks are nothing short of amazing - yes, the sidewalks; great restaurants; beautiful bridges and buildings.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone (excepts hordes of drunk Brits) could visit Prague? Well, now you can sort of, by visiting this site. It is an 18-gigapixel panorama photo of Prague that the photographer describes as follows:

"This is a super high resolution photo. Use your mouse to zoom in and see a startling level of detail. This image is currently (as of 12/2009) the largest spherical panoramic photo in the world. It is 192,000 pixels wide and 96,000 pixels tall. That’s 18.4 billion pixels, or 18.4 gigapixels! When it’s printed, it will be 16 meters (53 feet) long at regular photographic quality (300dpi). It was shot in early October 2009 from the top of the Zizkov TV Tower in Prague, Czech Republic. A digital SLR camera and a 200mm lens were used. Hundreds of shots were shot over a few hours; these shots were then stitched together on a computer over the following few weeks."

Enjoy!

Today is One of My Favorite Days of the Year

Today, December 9, 2009, is one of my favorite days of the year. Why is that? Because it marks the very last time in 2009 that I will be in airplane and be at O'Hare Airport.

Yes, with three weeks to spare, I will not do any more flying in 2009.

Sadly, I managed another 100000+ mile year with American Airlines - 61 "segments" = about 30 trips, so on average flying twice a month...hey, that doesn't sound too horrible does it?

Sure, AA makes it pleasant enough - pretty much automatic upgrades on all domestic flights, lots of "Thank you for your business, Mr. Feuerstein" when I step onto a plane, invitation to visit all the first class lounges of co-share partners like Japan Airlines and British Airways when I travel internationally....yes, somehow I survive.

Still and all, I very much prefer being at home (even if it is cold and snowing).

Wishing the best to everyone during the holidays,
Steven

A Report from DOAG 2009 (German Oracle User Group Conference)

I spent last week in Europe, a very nice trip in many ways. I was invited by the German Oracle User Group (DOAG) to do a keynote presentation at their annual conference in Nurnberg (Nuremberg). So I built a week of activities around that event.

First of all, I flew out to Germany from North Carolina, where I'd spent the weekend watching my nephew, Brian Daniels, play in his last college football game (actually in Danvilla, Virginia, at Averett University). Now he will continue to train hard, attend the Spring 2010 Combine, and hopefully be invited by an NFL (or other professional football league) team to actually make a living from football. Talk about tough jobs.

I have discovered that it's quite a lot fun hanging out with college football players. In my experience, these massive, heavily muscled, incredibly disciplined young men are also unfailingly polite and very sweet. Big teddy bears. Until they get on the field. Then it's all business.

Well, so from Raleigh, NC, my wife Veva went home on Sunday - and I took a flight to Heathrow. Then after a few hours layover (spent comfortably in the British Airways premier lounge in Terminal 5), I took another plane to Frankfurt, and from there a 2.5 hour train ride - and finally I was in Nurnberg. I was up for over 30 hours, but I must say my body is a strange machine. It doesn't really object too much to such situations. In fact, when I got to the hotel after being awake for some 25 hours, I went down to the fitness and exercised for an hour.

In any case, the DOAG conference was incredibly well-organized and well-attended. I did a short technical talk on Tuesday, organized at the last moment, and still had an overflow crowd of developers show up. DOAG asked me for a "head shot", so I sent my standard zip file with a wide variety of photos, mostly just to be entertaining. For example, it contains this photo:

But that doesn't mean they are supposed to use such photos, correct? Well...you never know. So DOAG (and Quest Germany) apparently decided that they wanted a somewhat "formal" appearance for me. So I arrived at the conference center and found variations of the following photo appear on agendas and signs and so forth:

I haven't seen me in a tuxedo in a long time! I sure didn't wear a tux at the conference. Heck, I didn't even bother with a suit. Lots of people still wear suits in Germany, I have found.

On Tuesday night, the DOAG board invited me (and all other English speakers) to dinner at a traditional German restaurant (the Golden Posthorne). That was fun, though I definitely ended up eating way more meat than I am used to.

On Wednesday, I did my keynote talk: Guarantee Application Success. I was determined to improve over my last keynote performance for DOAG several years ago. I really didn't think I did a very good job back then. I mostly presented the ideas of someone else (Lawrence Lessig - Code as Law) and I talked way too quickly. A number of people came up afterwards and said "That was a great presentation, Steven, but I could only understand half of what you said." That made me feel really bad.

So this year, the keynote contained all and only my own ideas, which meant I could be a bit more comfortable in my presentation. From what I can tell, it was well accepted. I certainly had a good time doing a talk in a hall that probably held 400-500 people, and offered not only a projection of my Powerpoint on a giant screen, but also threw up an image of me speaking that must have been 50 feet high.

Afterwards, I also sold and signed a bunch of my Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 5th edition. Then a hurried and truncated "Ask Steven" session, then back to the train station, and off to Prague.

So on Wednesday night I took a late flight (10 PM) to Prague and then spent the next two days teaching my Best of PL/SQL class to 25 students. This was my third class in Prague and each time I have been impressed by the quality of the students. Lots of really excellent questions, critiques of my code, new ideas for me to pursue....and I got to enjoy Prague for a little while.

It is a delightful city, especially the sidewalks and especially because I have had the very good fortune to become friends with some current and former employees of Oracle, and they seem to be perfectly to take me out for excellent meals. I had a wonderful dinner with Roman and Lenka at Trattorio Cicala on Thursday (lots of photos on the wall of the owner with big movie starts - Sean Connery, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Vin Diesel - but he didn't ask to take a picture with me. How insulting! Didn't he know who I was? Guess not...), and then on Friday at La Finestra with Petra. Oh and a fine but quick lunch with Roman, Lenka and Martin, who manages the Oracle University team there in Prague. Thanks for organizing the class, Martin!

Then on Saturday morning it was time to go home, or so I thought. I got to the Prague Airport 1.5 hours in advance - and found the entire airport shut down. There had been a fire, apparently. All systems were down, no one could check in for their flight....within an hour, my British Airways flight was cancelled and I was starting to contemplate having to stay an extra night in Prague - or London/Heathrow, but then I got onto a Czech Airlines flight, and was able to catch the third and last American Airlines plane back to Chicago. We are, in fact, starting our descent into my home city right now. [At which I found out that my suitcase was not on the plane; a day later, though, it had been delivered to my house.]

Unfortunately, I go back to an empty house. About 10 days ago, my son, Chris, fell while skateboarding and broke his left leg - badly. Now he has a titanium pin in his left leg and needs lots of help. So my wife, a former nurse, flew down a few days ago to assist.

Well, my house may be empty, but it's still home and I very much look forward to sleeping in my own bed, making my own bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal for breakfast, and so on.

And in six days, I fly back to Europe, to Birmingham, UK for the UKOUG conference!

See some of you there....
SF

Sure hope Oracle keeps mySQL!

I have decided that I really hope that Oracle gets to keep mySQL when it completes the acquisition of Sun (though I can certainly understand if the European Union draws the line and demands that it be spun off).

Why would I like this?

First, I am certain that Oracle will treat it right, probably do a better job of supporting and enhancing it than has Sun, simply because it has deeper pockets with which to finance such an effort.

Second, as you may have read by now, IBM has announced support for PL/SQL-based applications on DB2 9.7. So? Well, I think there is a rather good chance that in a few years, all of IBM's DB2 variants will support PL/SQL.

And if Oracle keeps mySQL, it seems to me that there is every reason to believe that Oracle will port PL/SQL over to mySQL, so that it has a solid programming language with which to manipulate mySQL data (the current state of mySQL's stored procedure language is not very encouraging).

Add to that the fact that PL/SQL now also runs on Oracle's Times Ten database, and it is possible for me to dream about a day when PL/SQL will become the de facto standard database programming language for SQL/RDBMS databases (well, except for Microsoft SQL Server).

What does that mean? I can sell more books! Do more trainings and webinars!

Go, PL/SQL, go!

An opossum in our tree

We thought we had a squirrel nest in the English Oak in our backyard - we certainly saw squirrels running around in the tree, and we could see a big bunch of leaves collected in the heart of the tree.

It also looked like the squirrels were actually able to bend down a branch from the English oak (which grows vertically for a long time and does not spread its branches) to form a bridge over to the pear tree and then to the garage.

But then recently I saw that a very thick branch had been bent at a sharp angle across to the neighbors yard:














Today, that branch above was bent almost down to the fence. It looked clearly broken - I investigated. It was. So I sawed it off and then Veva said: "Look, there's an opossum in the nest!" And then all became clear: that was no skinny little squirrel bending these branches. It was a big fat opossum:



Very cute!

Software Developers as Gods

Software - and testing it - is a very funny thing. Seems to me that in some ways software is our (humanity's) closest attempt to be gods - to create our own worlds.

In the real world, the "organic" one, stuff just happens and it is beyond beautiful. In the cyberworld, we - humans - must be the gods who pay attention to every detail. And every detail has to be right - which is awesomely overwhelming as tasks go.

To achieve the goal of a functioning, sustaining world, we have to explicitly and thoroughly test our software. In the real world, when stuff doesn't work, it does and does not make it to the next generation.

Can you imagine telling a god that it has to test its creation before we are expected to live in it? What an insult! The resulting fury would surely scorch a civilization or two to embers (perhaps that was really the sin of Sodom). So you can understand why we programmers do so little and so ineffective testing. It is insulting to think that what we wrote does not work, does not meet the needs of our users.

Well, it's hard being a god, but after a while you get used to it. You drink another Diet Coke, make snide comments to other gods about the fickleness of your subjects, and think up another methodology that will hopefully get you that much closer to perfection.

Somehow, I don't think that humans are up to this task.

But from one software developer to another (if that is what you, my reader, are), BEST OF LUCK!

Congratulations to Rio!

I am so happy. The Summer Olympics will not be in Chicago in 2016.

I thought it was such a bad idea. It was basically an attempt by Mayor Daley to establish his "legacy" of making Chicago a "great" city. It would have been a disastrous mis-allocation of resources very much needed elsewhere.

I tell you what, Mayor Daley, how about if you establish your legacy by ending the almost every day killings of children (almost always African-American) in your city?

It really burned me up that he could spend so much of his time, our money, etc., on trying to get the Olympics and so little of his time, effort, our money on making this city safe and healthy for its children. Disgusting.

Joel Silva, How Could You Be So Mean?

Got this email from my Dad (turns 80 next month) yesterday:

Subject: Twitter From: sheldon feuerstein

I took a look at Twitter and asked to see what was there for you and found one comment that asked "hasn't anyone told Steven that PL/SQL is dead?" I hope not...

DAD

I tracked down this message to Joel Silva, who wrote: "Going to attend Steven Feuerstein conference today. Can anyone tell him PLSQL is dead!?"

First of all, if it is dead, why are you coming to my event in Porto, Portugal? :-)

Second, you got my dad all worried....Joel, Joel, how could you be so mean?

So please people: be careful what you say on the Internet (about me, anyway). There are the tender sensibilities of parents to keep in mind!

:-)

OOW PL/SQL sessions with a multimedia focus

My friend and PL/SQL expert, Marcel Kratochvil, will be at OOW (up from Australia) to talk about his experiences using PL/SQL to deliver multimedia-rich applications. If you have any interest in this area, I strongly encourage you to check out his two sessions.

The first is at the Unconference, and covers Internet PL/SQL development Tips:
Wednesday - Oct 14, 1 PM
Overlook II: Mod PL/SQL Development Tips - including Google Maps, Spatial Integration and sending HTML formatted emails with graphics.

The second is a workshop to be held at the Oracle Develop Conference at the Hilton, and is a hands-on workshop for building an internet based multimedia PL/SQL application. Here are the details:

Tuesday Oct 13, 2.30pm -3.30pm Hilton Hotel
Build Fast, Secure Web Applications with the PL/SQL Gateway and Oracle Multimedia
In this hands-on lab, learn to build fast multimedia Web applications on Oracle Database with minimal code. Build a Web interface to query and view multimedia data with relational data. For example, query and retrieve a photograph, audio clip, or document in one piece of code. Tune the database so multimedia data will fly off the disk into the application.

Online Training for the New Economy

When the going gets tough and budgets get tight, money for training is often cut first. You still, however, need to learn how to best leverage the PL/SQL language and write high quality code. To help you, Quest is offering a three-part, webcast training series that I will be teaching. Each session consists of two hours of in-depth coverage of a specific functionality area or best practice.

The cost is far less than you would be for an onsite or public training - and I don't have to travel (and neither do you)!

More information about session logistics and registration are available through these links below. For much more detail on each session, please check out the descriptions at the end of this posting.

Webcast Details

• Session 1: "Turbo-charge PL/SQL Execution with Bulk Processing" - Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 2 p.m. ET
• Session 2: "Writing Maintainable PL/SQL Code" - Thursday, November 12, 2009, at 2 p.m. ET
• Session 3: "Error Management Features of Oracle PL/SQL" - Thursday December 10, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. ET

I hope that you can take advantage of this opportunity. Click here toget more details and to register.

Optimize PL/SQL Execution with Bulk Processing

This session focuses on how to turbo-charge the performance of multi-row SQL statements executed from within a PL/SQL using FORALL and BULK COLLECT. These features have been around since Oracle8i, but many developers still don't use them or only scratch the surface of what is possible.

The Bulk Processing webinar will talk about why these features were needed and how they work. Steven will start with simple examples and syntax and drill down into all nuances, including the LIMIT clause for BULK COLLECT and the SAVE EXCEPTIONS, INDICES OF and VALUES OF clauses for FORALL.

After attending this webinar, you will be able to both create new programs built around these features and also redesign existing programs safely to improve performance.

Writing Maintainable PL/SQL Code

Software managers (and, therefore, their developers) are very focused on delivering applications "on time" (that is, to meet the current production deadline). Sure, that's important. But as (or maybe even more) important is to build applications so that they can be maintained and enhanced without consuming all the resources of the development team (thereby interfering with new development).

This webinar offers a wide-ranging set of techniques to make your code easy to understand and maintain over time. These techniques include: the use of subtypes and local modules; how to activate and check compliance with standards; and encapsulation (information hiding).

After attending this webinar, you will be able to write code that minimizes the amount of development resources needed to maintain that code.

Error Management Features of Oracle PL/SQL

Consistent, robust error management is a critical feature of any successful application. Developers need to know all that is possible in PL/SQL regarding the raising, handling and logging of errors, and that standardize the way in which those tasks are performed.

This webinar takes you beyond the basics of exception handling in PL/SQL to explore the wide range of specialized error management features in Oracle, plus recommendations for best practices for consistent, robust application construction.

We will cover FORALL's SAVE EXCEPTIONS, DML error logging with the DBMS_ERRLOG package, the AFTERSERVERERROR trigger, the DBMS_UTILITY.FORMAT_ERROR_BACKTRACE function, and more. In addition, we will talk about hiding error management functionality behind a PL/SQL packaged API and then deploying it as a set of services for application developers.

After attending this webinar, you will be able to fully leverage PL/SQL error management features and follow best practices for consistent error management across your entire development team.

Those Europeans are so sensible

When I first read that Oracle would buy Sun, my immediate reaction was:

"How bizarre, to think that Larry Ellison, the King of Proprietary Software for so many years, now would own and control Java and mySQL!"

I have no doubt that Oracle will strongly support and enhance Java; it committed itself to the Java platform years ago.

But you've got to wonder about the future of mySQL. Sure, Oracle would royally piss off millions by letting mySQL dwindle, but it would likely offer a powerful alternative (like the free Oracle XE) - and would also likely be able to ride out the firestorm of protest.

Of course, the U.S. Justice Department said "No problem, Oracle. You go and swallow up Sun."

But the European Union is much more suspicious of corporations, which makes perfect sense to me. After all, the stated purpose of a corporation (maximize profits) has many unavoidable "conflicts of interest" with the stated purpose of democratic and civilized nations. As a consequence, it has raised concerns about this acquisition, specifically as it concerns mySQL.

I expect the acquisition will go through, but perhaps Oracle will have to make some sort of commitment to maintain and enhance mySQL, or maybe shed it entirely (reversing Sun's $1B acquisition of the software a year ago, which I think was a darned strange thing to do for a company in such bad shape).

A trip to Australia, Singapore, Seoul

I wrote this a few days ago...] Once again, at 35000 feet, on my way from Tokyo to LA - returning from two weeks in "APAC" - Asia Pacific theater. I spent a week in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne and Perth) then three days in Singapore and finally a very fast day in Seoul. All because there were enough Oracle developers in each of these locations who actually wanted to listen to what I have to say. What a lucky fellow I am!

Here's a recap of the highlights of my trip....but first, you can see all my photos at:

Australia: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60694364@N00/collections/72157622028021941/
Singapore: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60694364@N00/sets/72157622027981843/
Seoul: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60694364@N00/sets/72157622152297286/

Looooong flight from San Fran to Sydney, but I got lucky and they put me into a premium economy seat (Qantas), so I slept for 5 hours and worked for 8. Arrived Monday morning and headed over the Quest office. My big public event was on Tuesday, but Monday evening I presented a PL/SQL Quiz to the Sydney Oracle Meetup group organized by Alex Gorbachev. That was fine. I got to drink some beers first, so that my explanations were properly slurred. And, as is so often the case, I made my quiz questions too hard. Out of the 25 people there, the best anyone could do (3 people) was 5 out of 10 right. So then we did a tie-breaker. I figured the tie-breaker was for the really sharp folks. So my first tie-breaker question was:

Explain which feature of PL/SQL is related to this number: -24381

They just laughed at me. Are you laughing, too? Sure, it's obscure...but I bet some of you know the answer. Oh well....anyway, someone finally won - a copy of my soon to be released Oracle PL/SQL Programming 5th edition (up through Oracle 11.2).

Well, my seminars in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth went very well. Sponsored and organized by the AUSOUG, we had lots of enthusiastic attendees and many excellent questions. I renewed my acquaintance with several Oracle ACEs (and ACE directors) including Tony Jambu and Chris Muir. I like Australia. Not only are the folks generally friendly, but there is lots of interest in PL/SQL and many advanced developers. My kind of country.

I didn't have much time to wander around Sydney or Melbourne, so my photos are very "hit or miss"....

I visited Perth for the first time (western edge of that enormous island continent) and presented to some 100 Oracle technologists on Friday. They were very pleased to have me there - apparently very few people ever bother to go to Perth. But when they do - the weather stinks. "Oh, Perth is great - warm and sunny," they told me. I arrive and find it overcast and windy. On Saturday, my free day....40 km/h winds! Apparently Tom Kyte had the same bad luck. I presented from 9 to 4, more or less, and very few people fell asleep. We played Set and Mastermind, and did some PL/SQL, too. It was a great day.

And the poor weather was not going to hold me back. I walked all over, discovered the impossible triangle, enjoyed the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and spent some time in Kings Park. In East Perth, I came across a remarkable sculpture of an "impossible triangle" devised by Sir Roger Penrose in the 1950s. As you move around it, the different unconnected edges gradually merge into what appears to be a triangle with "one side". Penrose's work served as inspiration for a number of M.C. Escher pieces.

You can check out my impossible triangle photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60694364@N00/sets/72157622026683017/

Many thanks in particular to Chris Muir and Conner McDonald (they sacrificed a night of their lives to have dinner with me - and Chris even let me hold and snuggle with his three month old baby), as well as the rest of the AUSOUG officers and volunteers who made my events a success! Thanks as well to Ling, Silvana, Ceci, Alf and others at Quest Australia who helped make the week such a fine and productive time.

Then on I went to Singapore. I must admit: I really like Singapore. I like the weather (hot and humid), so much like Puerto Rico. I like the people: all sorts of people from all over, very informal, very easy going, great sense of humor. I even like the way the society it works - it's not a democracy; there is no free speech (though there is, I discovered a Speakers Corner, kind of like in London, where people can openly complain, once they get permission from the nearby police station). Instead, the government offers a trade: we will give you a decent quality of life, subsidizing housing, health care, public transport, etc. - and in exchange, YOU WILL BEHAVE. Criminals are treated most severely and lots of things are crimes. I am not saying I want the US to be like this, but it is lots easier to criticize such a setup from afar. From inside, it seems pretty nice. As long as the economy goes OK, and they have been hit hard, being very dependent historically on the US and UK financial industries. Hopefully the recovery is under way.

But there sure are lots of enthused PL/SQL developers. The Quest folks told me that even before they sent out the first email invite, they had people calling to reserve their seats. They had a waiting list of over 20 people, who kept calling: "Can I attend? Can I please attend?" I did a full day of presentations (same as in Perth) and then that evening I was to fly off to Seoul (red eye). After the event was over, Jason and Mark were asking me: "Have you ever had a foot massage?" Well, sort of but not really. So off we went - I got a foot massage, then a great dinner of chili crab (a Singaporean classic - very tasty and very very messy), then back for another full body massage that was just fantastic - then off to the airport....8 hours later, I arrived in my hotel room in Seoul (9 AM). Got a few hours sleep, anyway.

Before continuing with my "saga".....many many thanks to Clara, a truly professional and highly competent events organizer. Once again, she did a fantastic job pulling the third Oracle Experts Day together. Thanks also to Jason, Mark, Stanley, Beth and everyone else in the Quest office for making my stay so enjoyable (Beth even let me drive her car! Crazy lady!). And finally, most of all thanks to Gayathri for being so generous with her time and not only driving me to the Night Safari but even spending the evening walking around there with me.

See you again in 2010!

My last day was in Seoul - just one day, which was most unfortunate. But we put it to good use. They (Chaeyoung, Jihee, Jackson, Yuji and everyone else) pulled together an event of 100 people - which is very remarkable, considering that very few people are comfortable with English there, so we needed a translator (who apparently left much to be desired), and of course that reduces the number of people who will attend. It certainly reduced the numbers of words I could speak and and number of demonstrations I could do. But we had pocket references for everyone and I even remembered to bring my business cards, so I signed lots of books and mostly got the names right, and correctly offered my business card to many. Everyone seemed pleased with the results.

They told me in advance: plan to wear a suit and bring your business cards. I did both - and then ironically Raymond, the Quest country manager, showed up for lunch and the evening presentation dressed in a polo shirt, jeans and sneakers. "This is an event for developers!" he said. "They don't get dressed up." So I was dressed like a sales manager, and he was dressed like a developer. I was very jealous.

He also make a point in his introduction to tell people how old I am (just about to turn 51). People generally say that I look younger than my age, but I found that in Singapore and Korea, they were really blown away by my age. In Singapore, over and over people said "I can't believe you are 50." But usually they don't bother to mention it in the introduction. Jihee, Quest marketing manager, explained that in Korea alot of respect is paid to the elders. So I think that Raymond felt that it was important to tell people (mostly young developers) that I was actually OLD - and they should therefore listen to what I had to say. OK!

And the folks at Quest took very good care of me, taking me out to lunch (Mongolian - excellent food) and then dinner at a famous, traditional Korean restaurant. I was told (by friends in the US) to expect to drink lots of soju (Korean whiskey), get very drunk, and sing karaoke. Instead we had a seemingly endless delivery of very tasty and interesting dishes, along with some rice wine, and no one insisted that we go out and sing. Maybe that's because they knew I was running on 3 hours of sleep, and had to leave the next morning at 8:20.

So that's it. Two weeks away from home, and I added another country to my list of those I have visited (South Korea). I spoke directly to something like 400 developers and hopefully will have a ripple effect on many more. I greatly enjoyed visiting Perth and Seoul for the first time, and enjoying once again Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore.

I remain amazed, deeply gratified and feeling just downright lucky that so many people are interested in hearing what I have to say and reading what I write (both book-wise and code-wise). My deepest thanks to all those who organized the events and all those who feel they have something to learn from me.

Another idea for more equitable pay distribution

A long time ago, on my old and very colorful website (thanks to the artwork/design of Chris Silva, my son), I offered my thoughts about excessive executive compensation and an idea for avoiding the enormous gaps between rich and poor in our supposedly democratic country: 25X&NOMORE. Here's the basic idea:

The highest-paid employee of your company shouldn't earn more than 25 times what the lowest-paid employee is paid.

Why would I suggest something like this? Because we have a serious problem in this country:

"The pay disparity between CEOs and U.S. workers is increasing to alarming levels. In 1965, CEOs made 44 times the average factory worker's salary. Today, CEOs make 326 times the average factory worker's pay."

Oddly enough, corporate America has not heeded my call. Nor has Congress. Ah well...sometimes all you can really do is be a prophetic and wise voice in the wilderness. This makes you (and pretty much no one else) feel a little bit better.

I recently came across another effort to achieve similar goals: Open Year ("It's good to share."). It's quite different from my idea, depending on social networking and influence models. I think you will find it interesting and I encourage you to check it out.

Travel tip: Big fat neck pillow great for feet!

I am flying from San Francisco to Sydney. Fourteen hours. Not fortunate enough to be upgraded to business class. And when flying coach and trying to sleep, I find that one of my biggest problems is finding a comfortable position for my feet. If I plant them flat on the ground, my legs are not relaxed and it is hard to sleep. If I stretch them out (as far as the seat in front of me will allow, anyway), then my feet dangle forward or to the side and they end up stressing my ankles. Keeping me awake and needing to shift position.

Who knows? Maybe somebody out there somewhere sells something specifically for this problem. I have not found it. I have found, however, an alternative that works really well.

Lots of companies sell inflatable neck rings that are supposed to help support your head and make it easier to sleep. One particular such ring is big and fat: the Komfort Kollar.

I don't find it all that useful to wear around my neck. I recently realized, though, that if I put it on the floor in front of me, I can comfortably nestle my feet in and on the ring. I can then sleep more easily. Simple, cheap solution to a vexing (at least to me) problem.

OK, three more hours to Sydney! I slept for about 5 hours and now I am wide awake and ready to type type type. So far on this trip I have:

* written my latest ODTUG magazine column, Confessions of a Quick and Dirty Programmer
* put together a quiz and answers for my Sydney Oracle Markup presentation and pizza for later this evening
* continued enhancing the Code Tester backend to support automated testing of object types
* eaten too many sweet snacks
* written a bunch of Q&As for a database of quiz questions I am constructing (about which you will hear lots more very soon)

Back to work!

[ And now I am in my hotel in sunny, bright, too-cool Sydney, after some 25 hours of flying...time to exercise, eat breakfast, and head to the Quest office! ]

Photos and t-shirts by two fabulous artists

The two fabulous artists: my son Chris Silva and his wife Lauren Feece.

They recently created an installation on the beach in Puerto Rico. Photos here.

Chris has also put several very nice designs on t-shirts, which you can order here.

Corporate Stockholm Syndrome

For most of us, a job constitutes a straightforward, though often very unpalatable trade-off: you, the employee, hand over enormous chunks of your life (time and sentience) to a corporation, and your employer hands you back some money.

Needless to say, for the vast majority of people in this world, it's a poor trade. They work exceedingly long hours, endure poor to horrible working conditions, and are paid ridiculously small amounts of money.

Yet there is clear evidence to suggest that after an extended period of time, employees develop a Stockholm Syndrome-like response to their employers. They become grateful for the smallest crumbs that are handed to them. Here is an example I recently came across....

===============================
Improving employee morale with incentives a challenge in tough economic times
By Wailin Wong | Chicago Tribune reporter

ThoughtWorks, a Chicago-based information technology consulting firm, gives its employees a three-month paid sabbatical when their tenure reaches 10 years.

Nancy Kistler took her leave last summer after 14 years at the company, where she oversees several large client accounts. Instead of traveling around the world like some of her colleagues, Kistler stayed home in Grand Rapids, Mich., with her two young children. It was a welcome break after having traveled weekly for 14 years.

"I was really thankful for getting that opportunity because you don't get that anywhere these days, and having it be fully paid makes a huge difference," Kistler said. "To me, it really said a lot about how I'm valued by the company."
=================================

And there you have it, folks. This woman spends FOURTEEN YEARS traveling every week for her company (and I am sure paid quite well). For at least several of those years, she is separated from her children for a large part of the time.

And she ends up being really thankful for three months of time with her family.

I guess it's a whole lot better than being bitter.

Another most excellent ODTUG

I am just back from the latest ODTUG (the Oracle Development Tools User Group) Kaleidoscope conference, this time in Monterey, California. It was, as usual, a very well-run and successful event (their attendance actually grew from 2008, which is saying an awful lot given the state of the global economy).

It is easy to pick out the highlight of the conference for me: the ODTUG board of directors very graciously bestowed upon me their first Lifetime Achievement Award. Here, I can prove it to you with (what else?) Twitter: http://twitter.com/odtug/status/2273902345

[ How did we ever get by without Twitter? Aw, just kidding. I do without Twitter every single day of my life. :-) ]

Anyway, back to the seriously wonderful stuff: I was very honored by ODTUG and deeply appreciate the award, except I have to wonder if the "subtext" of the award is "Enough already, Steven. Time to chill out and let other people have their way with PL/SQL."

Maybe, maybe....I will give it some thought - after I finish the next edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming (due out in October at Oracle Open World), implement object type support for Quest Code Tester, wrap up my best practice video series on PL/SQL Obsession, and come back from my Asia-Pacific summer tour (Australia, Singapore and Seoul).

Of course, I don't like ODTUG just because they treat me so nicely (oh, and they have also agreed to let me publish a regular column named "Confessions of a Quick and Dirty Programmer" in their magazine). This is my favorite user group organization precisely because of its focus on developers. At a time when Oracle barely seems to remember that it has this great programming language (excepting the PL/SQL dev team, Oracle Magazine and OTN, of course), ODTUG offers an annual love fest for PL/SQL developers.

Hmmm, actually two love fests: the general ODTUG Kaleidoscope conference (it covers much more than just PL/SQL) and the annual Oracle PL/SQL Programming conference (it covers nothing but PL/SQL). OPP2009 will take place on Nov 10-11 in Atlanta. It will feature an expanded agenda, which means that, more than ever before, if you are looking for an intensive training in PL/SQL, OPP2009 is the best place to spend your scarce training dollars.

Enough shameless promotion of a conference for which I am technical co-chairperson.

So....thanks once more to the ODTUG board and its many fantastic volunteers, as well as Your Conference Connection, which does the on-the-ground organization of ODTUG events. Special kudos to Jeff Jacobs, Kaleidoscope conference chairperson, Mike Riley (ODTUG president, and husband of the very delightful Lisa Riley, with whom I had several excellent conversations) and Kathleen McCausland, ODTUG executive director.

If you've never attended a Kaleidoscope or OPP conference and you are a PL/SQL developer, I strongly urge you to get them on your calendar ASAP.

Quest Code Tester for Oracle 1.8.3 Now Available

Version 1.8.3 of Quest Code Tester (the most powerful automated testing tool for PL/SQL currently available, and my main obsession these days) is now available for downloading from Quest's on-line SupportLink (after being prompted to log in you will be taken directly to the download page). If you write PL/SQL code or manage a team that does so, you really owe it to yourself to check out this tool. Thirty-day free trial available at www.quest.com/code-tester-for-oracle.

I strongly urge all Code Tester users to upgrade to this version. It is, without doubt, the most stable and richly-featured release of this automated testing tool.

Of course, you would expect that it would have more features, which I detail below. How, you might ask, can I be sure to make my claim of "most stable"?

Very simple: because for 1.8.3, we finally "ate our own dog food" in a very big way and constructed an automated regression test of the backend functionality of Quest Code Tester.

You might have thought that since this is an automated testing tool, we would have done this from the very start. Yes, that would have been ideal, but so little about our lives are ideal, would you agree?

Certainly, we used Code Tester to test elements of the backend right from the beginning, but that is a different thing from building anything approaching a complete and automated regression test.

That is the most important new "feature" of 1.8.3, and we did it by creating a new utility to complement (and eventually be folded into) Code Tester, which we are calling Test Launcher. I talk more about Test Launcher in a follow-on post to this blog. We will soon be posting Test Launcher on the Code Tester community library in the Downloads and Upgrades section. You will all be able to use Test Launcher yourselves (though initially it will not be supported by Quest Support - you will need to report issues through the community).

New Features in 1.8.3

Besides fixing over 75 bugs, we added some very nice new features. The following information is also available in the release notes.

New Export/Import Architecture

Code Tester now writes export files as an XML document. It will import both the legacy ".QUT" export files as well as the new .XML formatted files. Merging is now only supported for XML exports. The new export format will be much more reliable and easier to support.

Expanded Set of "Hooks"

Code Tester now offers a greatly expanded set of hooks via the my_codetester package to customize the behavior of Code Tester at key points like before and after import, before and after running a test, etc.

Reports for Suites

All reports defined for individual test definitions are now available for suites as well.

View All Test Definitions in Test Dashboard

You can now change the schema selector to "All Schemas" so that you can see the list of all test definitions to which you have access (run and/or edit) at once, without changing the selected schema.

Use Windows Name to Track Changes to Test Definition

You can use the my_codetester package to specify to Code Tester that the "created by" and "changed by" audit columns on test definition tables be populated with the name of the Windows user, rather than the Oracle schema name returned by the USER function.

Test Package Formatting on Demand

Code Tester will no longer automatically format the generated test code (this will improve overall performance of generation). You will now need to explicit request a format and recompile in the Test Code tab of Test Editor.

Improved Support for Wider Set of Datatypes

Code Tester will now allow you to create test definitions properly for all kinds of timestamps and intervals. You can also create a test definition for an object type, though you will still need to write the actual test logic yourself.

Hurrah for Barack Obama: another step towards normalization with Cuba

How very exciting! The U.S. policy towards Cuba has been an obscenity for decades, even to the extent of supporting and allowing acts of terrorism on our own soil by so-called Gusanos (worms) against other Cubans supporting the Castro government. Normalization with Cuba would be a big step towards a new, less imperialistic era of relations between the US and Latin America.

OAS revokes 47-year-old suspension of Cuba

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (CNN) -- The Organization of American States on Wednesday revoked a 1962 decision suspending Cuba from the multinational group.Patricia Rodas, the minister of foreign relations for Honduras, made the announcement at the conclusion of the two-day meeting of the 35 member nations.The United States, which led the push to suspend Cuba at the height of the Cold War, was represented at the meeting by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.U.S. officials had no immediate comment.

Force me to take a break, will you?

Two of the biggest problems we developers have are (a) we are addicted to writing software and don't want to stop, and (b) we generally think we're pretty sharp people and can solve any problem that comes our way.

Why are these problems? Because the net result is that we tend to work too hard and too long without breaks, with a resulting reduction in code quality. This dynamic is particularly obvious when it comes to fixing a bug.

I don't know about you, but when something is demonstrably wrong with my code, I feel nothing short of a compulsion to find the cause of the bug and fix it. Now. Immediately.

But, of course, most bugs are not fixed immediately. Instead, I analyze my code, I run traces, I try this, I try that. My back starts to ache. My eyes get all squinty. I thirst, I hunger, but I cannot, will not stop until I get my code running....

BAD IDEA! If you can't fix your bug quickly, say within 15 minutes, there's a really good chance you won't find it for hours - if you don't take a break. The problem is that we can get too deep inside the code and replace perspective with urgency.

A much better idea is to take a break, get up, drink a big glass of water, move around, stretch, run around the block, take a nap - do anything to stop thinking directly about your problem. Instead let your brain take a break and think "for itself." There's a really good chance that the solution will just "pop" into your head by the time you sit yourself back down in front of your screen.

Of course, when you are desperately engaged with your code, it can be hard to muster the discipline to step away. In those situations, it's nice to have someone or something remind you that it's time for a break.

A few days ago, I got a note from Danilo, who said:

"I always read your personal blog, and i find it really interesting and full of useful tips. So today i would like to share an application that really helps my way to code and relax. I do take lots of breaks during coding, and I have found atool that is a perfect reminder to fight my instinct to code continuously for hours without interruptions. It is called WorkPause and you can download it at http://www.praven3.com/workpause."

I downloaded and installed the 30 day free trial and I find that I like it. It's very customizable. So now after 30 minutes of work, my screen locks and a 15 second countdown starts. I can't do anything with my laptop. My immediate reaction is anger.

"Hey! Why can't I type? What's going on?"

Then I remember why this has happened and I sit back, take a deep breath, and wait it out. After the 15 seconds, I can unlock it if I want. Or I can take a real break.

Either way, I am forced to pause. Thanks, Danilo. I am going to buy WorkPause. And I urge all the other developers reading this entry to give it a try. It will save you lots of time and make you feel better, too.