Feedback on idea for comments and tracing from newsletter

In my latest PL/SQL newsletter (if you don't yet receive it, visit www.stevenfeuerstein.com and enter your email in the yellow box on the left side of the home page), I passed on a tip I got during a training, namely:

Tech Tip: A New Place for Your Comments?

I just gave a two-day, "Best of Oracle PL/SQL" training to a team of developers in Winona, MN, home of the Sugar Loaf Bluff, which I climbed after the first day of training.

One of the development managers, Jason McClellen of Fastenal, offered the following suggestion when I talked about the importance of application tracing or instrumentation:

Comments are usually added to code as "static" text, visible only when you open up and look at your source code. Instead of hiding away your comments, include them in the calls to your tracing mechanism. That way, whenever tracing is enabled, you not only see values of data being manipulated by the program, you also read information that informs your understanding of that data.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and I plan to start doing this in my own code. In Quest Code Tester for Oracle, I use a variation on the Quest Error Manager to do my tracing, so a trace call (preceded by a comment) might look like this:

/*
Simple datatypes require an initial value. This "value"
includes the assignment operator to simplify template construction.
*/
IF qu_runtime.trace_enabled
THEN
   qu_runtime.
    trace (
      'set_placeholders typename'
    , outcome_in.result.attribute.datatype_declare
   );
END IF;

In the future (in fact, right now - I will "refactor" this code), my tracing will look like this:

IF qu_runtime.trace_enabled
THEN
   qu_runtime.
    trace (
      'set_placeholders'
    , 'Simple datatypes require an initial value. This "value" '||
        'includes the assignment operator to simplify template construction.'
   );
   qu_runtime.
    trace (
      'set_placeholders typename'
    , outcome_in.result.attribute.datatype_declare
   );
END IF;

I then asked readers to tell me what they thought. Several people wrote in and I will post this in a reply. Feel encouraged to add your own thoughts.

PL/SQL Challenge players finds doc bug in STANDARD package

The PL/SQL Challenge recently (6 August) offered a quiz on the INSTR function. I showed everyone the header of this function from the STANDARD package in which it is defined:

-- Find nth occurrence of str1 in str2 starting at pos
function INSTR(STR1 VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET ANY_CS,
   STR2 VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET STR1%CHARSET,
   POS PLS_INTEGER := 1,
   NTH POSITIVE := 1) return PLS_INTEGER;

Jean Xu reported a problem with the comment above the header. It should say "of str2 in str1"! I'd never noticed this, with all the times I've looked at the STANDARD package. I let Bryn Llewellyn, PL/SQL Product Manager, know about this, so hopefully the next release of Oracle will include a correction.

Yet another benefit of playing the PL/SQL Challenge: you can help improve the quality of the PL/SQL language itself!

So if you are not yet one of the more than 2400 developers who have been taking the quiz in the last month, register and start playing today!

PL/SQL Challenge Live event in Melbourne, Australia

Quest Software and AUSOUG sponsored a PL/SQL Challenge Live quiz at the Insync 2010 conference on 16 August (which took place just 3 hours after I arrived from a very long odyssey from Chicago). This is the second live quiz I have done (the first was at ODTUG's Kaleidoscope conference in June), and it went much smoother than the first, since I built a PL/SQL procedure to automatically compute winners (manual processes really are things to avoid whenever possible!).

Forty-two developers played the quiz and I am pleased to announce that Jeff Kemp, currently ranked #5 in this quarter on the daily quiz, took first place with a score of 37 points out of a possible maximum score of 43. He wins a $100 giftcard from Westfield Mall. Here is list of the top 20 scorers in the competition:

01 Player JEFF KEMP = 37
02 Player STUART WATSON = 34
03 Player INDU NEELAKANDAN = 33
04 Player TREVOR TRACEY-PATTE = 33
05 Player BRETT MCBRIDE = 32
06 Player MARIA DE MESA = 32
07 Player KHOI NGUYEN = 32
08 Player IAN CORKHILL = 31
09 Player MARC THOMPSON = 31
10 Player ROHAN MILTON = 31
11 Player SWEE KEONG TAN = 31
12 Player RAY FEIGHERY = 31
13 Player GARETH OWEN-CONWAY = 30
14 Player TIM DANIELL = 30
15 Player ASHOK SHOKKANNAA = 30
16 Player THOMAS WENDE = 29
17 Player PANKAJ DADOO = 29
18 Player ROGER SCHNEIDER = 29
19 Player ANTHONY BRUMBY = 29
20 Player R F = 29

Hopefully they will all register at and play the daily quiz of the PL/SQL Challenge as well. They clearly have lots of promise! And if you are not yet playing the daily quiz of the PL/SQL Challenge, well please do join the other 1400 developers who play almost every day, learning more about PL/SQL and winning weekly and monthly prizes.

Finally we were lucky enough to have Tom Kyte in attendance at the live quiz. He was kindly pointed out two subtle problems with the quiz, so I cleaned those up for the other quizzes this week. One point will also result in a minor change in our assumptions.

Fall 2010 Webinar Series Sponsored by Quest Software

I will be conducting a third series of webcasts for Quest Software that will put you on the fast track to maximizing your understanding and use of Oracle PL/SQL. Here are lots of details and links for registration. I hope to "see" you there!

Session 1: Programming with Collections
Monday, September 27, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern ($200.00 US)
Collections (array-like structures in PL/SQL) are critical data structures that are used in some of the most important features of PL/SQL. Every PL/SQL developer should have a deep familiarity with collections and the wide range of features that Oracle has implemented for them over the years. This session introduces collections and quickly moves on to detailed explanations of collection methods, how to leverage string indexing in associative arrays, multi-level collections, set-level operations on nested tables and more. The session will run for approximately two hours. 
Register 

Session 2: Say Goodbye to Hard-Coding in PL/SQL
Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern ($200.00 US)
Everyone knows that hard-coding is a bad idea. Too many developers, however, only think in terms of literal values when they think of hard-coding. There are, unfortunately, many ways that hard-coding manifests itself in our programs. This webinar offers a comprehensive look at all the types of hard-coding that can appear in your programs, from literals to explicit declarations to exposed formulas, and offers specific techniques to get rid of the hard-coding. The result is code that is much easier to read and to maintain. The session will last approximately two hours.
Register

Session 3: Dynamic SQL in Oracle PL/SQL
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern ($200.00 US)
Dynamic SQL (construction, parsing and execution of SQL statements and PL/SQL blocks at runtime) has become a common and critical element of most modern applications. PL/SQL offers two distinct methods for dynamic SQL: native dynamic SQL  (NDS) and DBMS_SQL. This webinar focuses primarily on the capabilities of native dynamic SQL: how to use EXECUTE IMMEDIATE to execute dynamic query, DML, and DDL statements. We will also go beyond the basics and delve into when to use DBMS_SQL (method 4 dynamic SQL), and new Oracle Database 11g features for dynamic SQL (most importantly, interoperability between DBMS_SQL and NDS.  The session will last approximately two hours.
Register

Update: Eli as Programmer

Almost three weeks ago, my son Eli started working for me as an APEX programmer - with absolutely no background in software. He'd focused mainly on being a musician for the last five+ years (guitar, songwriting, etc.). So: minimal mathematics education; no knowledge of SQL or PL/SQL; no experience with HTML, Javascript....what were we getting ourselves into?

I am very pleased to report that Eli has made rapid progress. He is now building basic APEX applications, writing queries and other SQL statements, making changes to the PL/SQL Challenge application (very simple changes for now!), learning HTML.

He whips through APEX design pages so quickly, I start to get dizzy trying to follow him. It looks like this is going to work out very, very well.

Eli told me that while he hadn't written software, he had lots of experience with creating and manipulating music in his head. We agreed that this would likely help with programming and I would say that this is now well established. While Eli had not experience with SQL syntax, his brain seems to be very nicely trained to work with a large number and highly complex abstractions. So the switch from music to logic/code seems to be a smooth one.

In addition, while Eli is not video game fanatic, he has certainly spent time on various game consoles from a relatively early age. I think back to a 10 year old Eli playing a game that involved choosing and arming characters for a quest, solving puzzles on the screen, quickly paging through menus and options....and then I look at him "playing with" the APEX interface.

I realize that for a person who has trained his or her brain to work with a rich UI found in video games, in which most of your activity is point-and-click rather than typing, an environment like APEX is "child's play" - a relatively crude and simplified interface.

So I now declare myself happy that Eli played video games, to prepare himself for the "real world."

Eli, it has been a real pleasure to work with you and I look forward to lots more of it in the future!

"Liberal media" what a laugh!

I have always found it both amusing and alarming to hear the right wing of this country blast the mainstream media for its liberal bias. What a joke. Sure, lots of journalists might be left-leaning or centrist. But the content and direction of the media is determined by its owners, and what this means (among other things) is that the quality and quantity of critiques of corporate mis-behavior are minimized.


Also, the coverage of non-right wing activity in this country is pitiful and most clearly demonstrates how the media is biased towards the right.


Case in point: the tea party movement holds a meeting of several hundred people, and the national media are all over it, live interviews, commentary, blah blah blah. 


Compare that to the scene in Detroit in late June, when the US Social Forum held a convention to discuss and plan ways to increase the quantity and quality of justice and equality in this great nation of ours. Over 18,000 progressives, lefists, whatever label you want to apply to them, gathered together for five days.


18,000 people gathered to talk politics, to challenge the tea party ideas, press Obama and Congress to do more. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Certainly worthy of some basic, minimal media coverage on every mainstream outlet. 


So who from the major media were present? Venezuela's TeleSur and Al Jazeera English.


That's just pitiful, and an incredible disservice to the millions of people in this country who are angry at the status quo and are looking for alternatives. 


How can you call the media "liberal" when it so clearly promotes and highlights right-wingers while ignoring those on the left?

My Son, Eli, Takes on APEX

My youngest son, Eli (23), has spent the last several years honing his skills as a guitarist and composer. He's very talented, but it's hard to make a living as a musician, especially in the current economy.

Much to my delight, Eli has decided that he would like to try his hand at being a software developer. He has a basic foundation of mathematics, but no programming experience. He has, on the other hand, well-developed powers of abstraction, used to conceptualize and organize music and songs. He is excited about diving into the world of software.

I've decided to have him learn Oracle fundamentals and APEX 4, as the quickest path to making him productive. I have lots of work to be done in APEX for my various projects.

I will also take this opportunity to deepen my familiarity with APEX; it certainly makes sense given that PL/SQL is the foundation technology. I've just been hard-pressed to date to make time for learning a new technology. So we will learn together.

Having said that, it will be very helpful for Eli to have some mentors in the APEX world, someone who knows the product well and would be willing and able to provide some advice.

So if anyone reading this knows APEX well (I doubt he will be utilizing APEX 4 features for quite a while) and would be willing and able to answer the occasional question from Eli, please send me a note at steven@stevenfeuerstein.com. I would be most grateful, as would Eli.

A little bit of corporate sanity and hope

I read an article in the NY Times today regarding an apparel factory in the Dominican Republic that, according to the Times, "is a high-minded experiment, a response to appeals from myriad university officials and student activists that the garment industry stop using poverty-wage sweatshops. It has 120 employees and is owned by Knights Apparel, a privately held company based in Spartanburg, S.C., that is the leading supplier of college-logo apparel to American universities, according to the Collegiate Licensin." 

There have been efforts in the past to pay a "living wage" to workers, but it usually led to high costs to the consumer and very limited distribution. In this case, Knights Apparel has a market-leading position and support from many universities. This could really work, and lead the way for future, similar initiatives.

I will, from this moment forward, be on the lookout for Knights Apparel products and purchase them, instead of the products of their competitors, such as Nike. I hope you will consider doing the same.

The moratorium on deepwater drilling and human arrogance

I am stunned at the pressure mounted by Gulf Coast-area politicians and businesspeople on the Obama Administration to allow resumption of deepwater drilling.

Without a doubt, this moratorium has clear and profound impacts, in terms of loss of jobs and revenue and more. So I can understand the immediate reaction to be one of "The BP disaster is a once-in-a-lifetime event! Drilling is overwhelmingly safe! Let us get back to it!"

What is missing from such a response is an understanding of the concept of unacceptable risk.

Sure, it would be really nice to avoid the financial impact of the moratorium. Sure, it is very, very unlikely that another disaster will occur anytime soon. But that's just statistics. Then there is the real world, in which corporate negligence and corner-cutting, plus the unpredictability of weather and ocean, can clearly lead to outcomes whose impact could be catastrophic.

I would feel far better about lifting the moratorium if the oil companies openly acknowledged that they have spotty maintenance histories, that BP clearly took shortcuts to improve profitability. I would feel like we have learned from this disaster if the government launched a thorough investigation of all deepwater rigs, examining all company records and the rigs themselves, verified that we don't have any other disasters waiting to happen.

In other words, we need to make as sure as possible that this entire industry isn't a disaster waiting to happen. After 8 years of Bush and "hands off" regulation, we should have no reason at all to think that these companies and their equipment can be trusted.

Big day for me - and at least a few PL/SQL developers

Today (in one hour in fact, 10 AM Chicago time), 48 developers will compete in the first-ever PL/SQL Challenge quarterly championship, with a grand prize of US$1000, second prize of US$500 and third prize of an ebook collection of all O'Reilly Media Oracle books.

It has been a long three months from the launch of the PL/SQL Challenge on 8 April. I have learned so much from the many developers who have played - and critiqued - my quizzes. I have been very pleased with the response of so many developers to the Challenge: enthusiasm, increased interest in the PL/SQL language, eagerness to compete...

Hopefully all will go well and smoothly. OK, back to preparations....

PL/SQL Challenge taking off - 1000+ daily players

The PL/SQL Challenge is rapidly gaining momentum. We are in our second 1000+ player day (I think we will break 1200), and the fourth 900+ player day in a row. I am very excited. I have this feeling that the PL/SQL Challenge will soon be a key gathering site for PL/SQL developers, and the only way for them to demonstrate through public rankings their expertise in the language.

Many players have shared with me  their enthusiasm for the daily quiz, and how much they are learning  about PL/SQL from the quizzes.

Who knows? Perhaps references to PL/SQL Challenge rankings will start to appear in resumes!

We will be holding our first quarterly championship next week, awarding the US$1000 and US$500 prizes for the first time since we started the Challenge in April 2010.

If you haven't yet started playing the daily quiz, now is a great time to start. It's only the fourth day into a new quarter, so you can certainly still rank up near the top and qualify for the next quarterly championship if you start playing today.

Just visit www.plsqlchallenge.com, register or login, and take the quiz. It's free and easy!

Meant to be?

Don't get me wrong (or get me as wrong as you'd like), I am very happy that the US won their latest World Cup game, and will advance to second stage. And I am very happy for Landon Donovan, who scored the winning goal. I like the game of football (soccer) very much, used to play and then referee kids' games.


But I found Donovan's statement about the victory and its meaning a bit hard to take. He said (according to the Chicago Tribune): "It makes me believe in good in the world and if you try to do things the right way, it' good to see it get rewarded."


This idea that something was "meant to be" or a "reward" for previous good behavior is of course very widespread. And I can see how this belief can help people get through hard times. I don't believe the same thing; at least, I suppose I am "theoretically" open to the possibility that in fact there is some grand design that invests meaning and intent in things that happen.These days, though, I mostly hold to the viewpoint that "stuff just happens" and the only meaning events and outcomes have is the meaning we inject into it.


Having said that, OK, you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe. But, c'mon, Landon - you seem to be implying that all those other soccer players who are losing have not done things "the right way" and whose loss is a "good in the world." 


And that, dear reader, is really hard to believe.

Can BP "speed it up"?

I just caught this headline at Yahoo:

Coast Guard to BP: Speed it up, stop the spill (AP)

"Crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washes ashore in Orange Beach, Ala., Saturday, June 12, 2010. Large amounts of the oil battered the Alabama coast, leaving deposits of the slick mess some 4-6 inches thick on the beach in some parts. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)AP - The Coast Guard has demanded that BP step up its efforts to contain the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the weekend, telling the British oil giant that its slow pace in stopping the spill is becoming increasingly alarming as the disaster fouled the coastline in ugly new ways Saturday."

And I find myself wondering: could it really be possible that BP is not expending all possible effort and expense, that they are not working as hard and as smart as they can to fix the problem?

They've certainly been trying some massive, difficult things - and failing.

I tend to see things this way: we've reached a dangerous and awkward point in our evolution and development as a species. We have at our disposal incredible technical skills, allowing us to do all sorts of amazing things. But we haven't yet developed a sufficiently sophisticated moral framework in which to apply our awesome skills.

As a result, we now find ourselves doing things to ourselves and our world that are beyond our capabilities to fix.

Well, in that case, I hope that BP has in fact been slacking all this time and now they will work harder and fix the problem. Yeah, right.

New presentation available for download: Golden Rules for Developers

I presented for the first time ever "Golden Rules for Developers" at the NYOUG general meeting on June 9, 2010.

Click here to download the presentation in PDF form.

And here's the description of the presentation:

We all want to write better code: fewer bugs, faster algorithms, readable blocks. Yet again and again our best intentions are thwarted by...all sorts of people and things: ourselves, our managers, our users, crazy deadlines, lack of tools, and more. We have, unfortunately, control over only so much of our professional lives. We generally can't do much about our managers or our users. We usually can't change the deadlines. So we have to look at what each of us can do individually to move to the next level of software developer. This session offers a set of "golden rules" that we all can agree on and will definitely improve our code - and then offers some practical advice to help you follow them.

What other nation besides Israel....

• Could drop a bunch of highly trained, elite commandos onto a boat carrying humanitarian supplies and hundreds of people who they know are very angry at the Government of Israel, and then complain when those commandos are actually attacked?
• Could claim that it was "self defense" when these commandos kill and injure dozens - on a boat they boarded in international waters?
• Would so carelessly toss away their relationship with the only majority-Muslim nation in the world willing to be some kind of friend to Israel?
• Would embroil its key (perhaps all too soon, only) ally, the United States, in yet another crisis, at a time when the U.S. is flailing about with a massive, uncontrolled oil spill, a war in Afghanistan, a devastated economy? [hey, maybe that's precisely why they did it now!]
• Could insist that they can carry out their own "impartial" investigation into this debacle and, yes, massacre?

Imagine if the "tables were turned".

Imagine a boatload of Jews heading to the Promised Land, with nothing but food, cement, medical supplies and some metal bars on board the ship. Then the ship is boarded by heavily armed and well trained commandos. Do the Jews on board simply give up? No! They have learned their lesson. They will fight back valiantly, with few weapons, but a strong sense of righteousness. Miraculously, the commandos are forced on the defensive, and then they unleash deadly weapons fire on the ship passengers, killing and wounding dozens. And the Jews or more specifically in later versions of these stories, "Israelis" (meaning: Israeli Jews) are heroes.

This is precisely the kind of story told over and over again (at least in Jewish families like mine and to members of synagogues), from the founding of the State of Israel: courageous, outgunned Jews performing miraculous, virtuous acts as they stand up for their ideals and those among them who are unable to defend themselves.

The parallels and contradictions between those "Jews as victims-no-longer" stories and the events of the last few days are striking and disturbing. And of course Israel cannot be seen as the persecutor in such tales - Israel is always on the side of good and right, it never does anything wrong. It only defends itself. Yeah, right. Save it for...American Jews.

The Government of Israel complains about how they are singled out for criticism, how they face "existential" challenges from states like Iran. It seems more and more clear, quite sadly, though, that the worst enemy faced by Israel today is its own militarized, ultra-right government, its fundamentalist, extremist political organizations (currently in control of the government) - and the American Jews who believe Israel can do no wrong, and will provide political and financial cover for every red line the GofI crosses.

Soon, Israel will be widely regarded as a true rogue state - precisely because the Government of Israel insists on taking rogue actions.

A blog for the PL/SQL Challenge

We have created a new blog (just what the world needed?) specifically for the PL/SQL Challenge.

The developers playing the daily quiz are very engaged, to say the least, and they often have lots to say about the questions and answers. When a player has an objection to a quiz, we will now publish an entry about it, so that everyone can comment and read the threads.

In fact, Finn published some very interesting results from his research into UTL_FILE and its handling of newline characters. I encourage you take a look.

I also wanted a soapbox from which I could talk about why I created the PL/SQL Challenge and where I plan to take it into the future.

Interesting keynote speaker for ODTUG

I just received a note "pre-announcing" the ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 keynote. Not someone from Oracle, not someone deep into the technology itself, like me. No, instead, a person who is paying attention to how the Internet and computing in general can have a profound (and not necessarily positive) impact on our lives. Check it out - and register for the conference! Here's a chunk from the announcement:

"The Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) is pleased to announce that Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center s Internet & American Life Project, will deliver the Keynote Address at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 on Monday, June 28. The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit, non-partisan "fact tank" that studies the social impact of the Internet. The Project has issued more than 200 reports based on its surveys that examine online activities and the Internet's role of the Internet in our lives.

"Lee is a co-author of Up for Grabs, Hopes and Fears, and Ubiquity, Mobility, Security, a series of books about the future of the Internet, published by Cambria Press and based on Project surveys.  He is also co-authoring a book for MIT Press about the social impact of technology, with sociologist Barry Wellman, which will be published in late 2010. The working title is Networked: The New Social Network Operating System. Click here for more information on Lee Rainie and the prestigious Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

"This very timely Keynote Address is just one more reason for attending ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010, June 27- July 1 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Do not delay in Registering. Also, the hotel is filling up quickly, so make your overnight reservations as soon as possible. The cut-off for the conference rate is June 9. We cannot guarantee that the conference rate will be available after that date."

PL/SQL Challenge not useful if you're not on Oracle11g?

I just received the following email from a person who tried out the PL/SQL Challenge:

"I don't have 11g installed on my home computers, and my workplace hasn't upgraded to it (not until 2011). So not having had a chance to use it or any reason to study the documentation, I'm not going to answer any 11g questions. I'd like to recommend the PL/SQL Challenge to people where I work. My principal professional focus, however, is improving the general SQL and programming (PL/SQL) skills of developers, rather than improving folks understanding of the esoterica of PL/SQL. While I personally do appreciate the PL/SQL challenge (especially in regards to the frustrating quirks of the language), I cannot at this time recommend it for a general audience in the industry I work (Financial Services)."

I found this reaction fascinating on several levels and sent the developer this reply:

I will remove your user account from the PL/SQL Challenge, but please read my response below first and then confirm that you want nothing further to do with it.

I can certainly understand your frustration at being confronted with an 11g question, which generally would seem to be completely irrelevant to what you are doing.

First, allow me to point out that the vast majority of our questions are based on a 10.2 platform; it would surely be hasty to reject the Challenge as a whole because of this question's 11g dependency.

Second, oddly enough, this question is a great example of why the PL/SQL Challenge could be so important for developers who are precisely in your position: not yet on 11g, but surely you know it is coming your way (and for your industry).

The function result cache is an incredibly powerful and important 11g feature; it is definitely not "esoterica."
 
In fact (1), it is so powerful and important that once you learn about it, it should change the way you write your applications right now, in order to be prepared to take smooth and rapid advantage of it when you upgrade.

In fact (2), I have been presenting for over a year now a presentation titled " Why you should care about Oracle 11g now" (available here) to drive home precisely this point.

Bottom line: I hope you will reconsider, continue playing and encourage others to do so.

And for everyone else: the Challenge is now being played regularly by over 700 developers each day. I hope that you will give it a try yourself. You could learn an awful lot about PL/SQL and you could win some excellent prizes!

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.