OracleBlog

I got named in ComputerWorld's "Best IT Blogs on the Net." Granted, only in the "buffer overflow" section, but still - that's pretty cool!

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/1466?source=nlt_blg

Maybe it is another consequence of the Thomas Kyte Effect?

http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/12/thomas-kyte-effect.html

Anyway, I feel very fortunate for having this new audience, but I feel bad for having nothing really intelligent to say. So I thought I would link to some of my favourite earlier posts, and some of my most popular "hits", to give you an idea of what I like to chat about.

To my more frequent visitors like Doug, Eddie, Laurent, Gary, Peter, David, William, and so on, as well as any lurkers, I would appreciate hearing your picks, too.

Here is the brief list of my highlights:

1. NULL

I posted a few articles on this, because there are quite a few errors casual database programmers may make in their misunderstanding of NULL and how its treated in Oracle. To put it bluntly, NULL is NOT nothing! If ever I write a proper article for publication, it will likely be on this topic.

NULL vs Nothing:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/05/null-vs-nothing.html
NULLs in Oracle:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/06/nulls-in-oracle.html
Using NULL to exploit the COUNT/NULL feature:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/10/using-decode-to-exploit-countnull.html

2. Best Practises

I like to blog a lot on what I feel are best practises for database programming. Please allow me to pick three of the most general of the bunch, where I have promoted Views, Constraints and Packages:

Use Views:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/07/use-views.html
Use Constraints:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/07/use-constraints.html
Oracle Packages:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/10/oracle-packages.html

3. Advanced Concepts

Occasionally I blog on a technique that would only come to the attention of someone who has used Oracle to solve a more complex problem. Here is one example of that.

Pivot and Crosstab Queries:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/09/pivot-and-crosstab-queries.html

4. High-Hit Posts

There were two posts that, for various reasons, seem to have higher hit-counts than the others. Here they are:

Analyzing Query Performance:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/09/analyzing-query-performance.html
UTL_HTTP:
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/08/utlhttp.html

5. Putting it all together

In "Oracle by Example" I brought together many concepts into one.
http://thinkoracle.blogspot.com/2005/07/oracle-by-example.html

Throughout my blog you'll also see book reviews, top 20 lists, and lots of little tips and tricks I discover. As you'll note, I appreciate any feedback, and I get an email if you leave a comment even on an old post, so please feel free to do so.

I would also like to direct my new visitors to the blogs I enjoy the most. You can see the list on the right-hand side, but other than Tom Kyte's, which you have surely already visited (http://tkyte.blogspot.com), I would like to draw particular attention to these two:

Doug Burns: http://oracledoug.blogspot.com
Eddie Awad: http://awads.net/wp

I enjoy ALL those blogs, but if you only have time for a couple, please check those out.

Warning to Doug and Eddie: You might experience the first ever Robert Vollman Effect!