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Top 12 reasons why you should NOT attend the next NoCOUG conference
#12 All NoCOUG emails automatically go to your spam folder, including this one. You rely on Outlook for career guidance.
#11 They won’t send a stretch limousine to pick you up and take you back.
#10 They talked up SQL for 25 years but now, they’re all, like, “No SQL.” I mean, really!
#9 You’re wayyyyy too busy working to learn anything new. (A very good problem to have!)
#8 Your head is exploding with knowledge already. (An even better problem to have!)
#7 It’s always the same people there, like Iggy and Kamran. (We totally understand but we can’t tell Iggy and Kamran to stop coming, can we?)
#6 You were there the day NoCOUG webmaster Eric Hutchinson sang the theme song from Cheers “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.” You don’t ever want to hear Eric sing again. Ever!
#5 The food is just too good. You eat to live, not live to eat. (Good for you!)
#4 You don’t appreciate being bribed with free raffle prizes like iPads, Oracle Press teddy bears, and Oracle Press books. (The world needs more upright and honest people!)
#3 You’ve been going for 25 years already; it’s time for a change. You’re going to AARP meetings now (American Association of Retired Persons).
#2 You’ve finally converted your company to Excel spreadsheets. So much cheaper and easier to use!
But the #1 reason not to attend the NoCOUG conference tomorrow is:
#1 You thought that NoCOUG was the North Carolina Oracle Users Group on the East coast!
The golden rule of NOT tuning SQL
Dear NoCOUG members and friends,
The golden rule of not tuning SQL is “operate with as little information as possible.” Not only will this increase your chances of failure but it will make it difficult for others to help you.
Every exercise in problem solving – no matter how little – has exactly six stages: Problem, Observation, Implication, Solution, Execution, and Documentation. I use the acronym POISED to remember the six stages. If you strive to operate with as little information as possible, you increase the chances that you will not progress beyond the Observation stage.
I recently saw a request for SQL tuning help (http://www.freelists.org/post/oracle-l/Query-tuning-help). The poster had provided the EXPLAIN PLAN output. You probably know that EXPLAIN PLAN output is not of much use in SQL tuning. He was asked to add the GATHER_PLAN_STATISTICS hint and provide the output of DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY_CURSOR (http://www.freelists.org/post/oracle-l/Query-tuning-help,7). The rowsource execution statistics in the DISPLAY_CURSOR output showed that hundreds of thousands of rows were being retrieved and then discarded. There was enough information to deduce the right joining order (http://www.freelists.org/post/oracle-l/Query-tuning-help,9) but not enough to explain why the query optimizer was not finding the right order.
The best tool for tuning SQL is SQLTXPLAIN because it collects all the information that is required for tuning SQL. The author of this tool is Carlos Sierra. He will be conducting a two-day SQL tuning master class at the CarrAmerica conference center in Pleasanton on February 19 and 20. He will also speak at our winter conference at the Oracle conference center in Redwood Shores on February 21. I hope that you can attend at least one event.
Kindest regards,
Iggy Fernandez
NoCOUG Journal editor
Attention Looney Tuners and SQL Sinners everywhere
Do you write or tune SQL statements in your job? Are you a Looney Tuner? A SQL Sinner? Do you yearn to learn the secrets of SQL performance? Are you looking for a guru to dispel the clouds of confusion? Who better than the guy who created the tools used by Oracle Support to tune troublesome SQL? You’re right, we’re talking about the one, the only Carlos Sierra, the author of SQLTXPLAIN, TRCA (aka “TKPROF On Steroids”), and SQLHC (SQL Health Check).
On February 19, Carlos Sierra will deplane at NoCOUG to conduct an intensive two-day SQL tuning class featuring all his awesome tools. Did I mention that these are the same tools that are used by Oracle Support to tune troublesome SQL? If you think that you might possibly be interested in attending this master class, please send a message to training@nocoug.org so that we can inform you once all the details are finalized and registration is opened.
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