Best practices? I'm not so sure.

I'll be delivering a webinar this week that has the words "Best Practices" in the presentation title. As I've been preparing, it has really struck me how my definition of a best practice is not the traditional IT definition. Wikipedia says

A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark.

OK. That sounds reasonable, right? So, what's my problem? Well, I think that if this definition is the traditionally accepted standard definition, there's something missing. What about context? I suppose you could infer that a specific context is implied for any best practice, but the inference isn't enough. An unfortunate side effect the label "best practice" has when it is attached to any method or technique is that it makes people blind to the context in which the practice should/could be applied. Can you think of any examples where a practice that is "best" in one context is questionable within another? Sure you can (feel free to share yours in the comments!). But, so often, many people will take a best practice at face value without considering the context of their own situation.

I think a best practice is really a contextual practice. I'm borrowing this term from Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup. Ries writes that we should strive to understand the context which we find ourselves in, and then apply the practice which is best within that context. I couldn't agree more. It's not about blindly following steps or guidelines that may, or may not, be applicable and particularly useful in your situation. It's about understanding. You've got to understand your situation and take steps that make sense in that context. Not simply take steps that worked for some other person, in some other context, at some other time, just because it is labeled as a "best practice".

My goal for my webinar's list of "best practices" is to offer ways to gain understanding and clarify the context of your specific situation when developing SQL. With a clearer understanding and proper context, you can have confidence to make the right choices that lead to optimal results. Come join me for the webinar and see if I succeed!

April 5 Webinar (sponsored by Embarcadero)

I'll be conducting a webinar entitled Best Practices for Developing Optimally Performing SQL on April 5. Embarcadero is sponsoring the event as part of their commitment to support the Oracle community with growth and learning opportunities.

The webinar will be offered twice on April 5.
- 6:00 am PDT / 9:00 am EDT / 13:00 GMT / 2 pm in UK
or
- 11:00am PDT / 2:00pm EDT / 18:00 GMT / 7 pm in UK

I'm normally hesitant to use the label "Best Practices" as I think things often get labeled as such and people forget to test and verify them in context of their own situations and end up creating as many problems as they attempt to solve. So my list of best practices doesn't include specific do's and don'ts. My list is more about how to approach SQL development with a strong emphasis on several key areas:

• Plan first - There's almost always more than one way to write a SQL statement. Cover your bases.
• Ask questions - You have to "tune the question, not the query". The more questions you ask, the deeper your understanding.
• Focus on the journey, not the destination - If you are only focused on what the query answer/result is, you'll likely overlook how you write SQL. Typically, how and why are more important questions to ask.
• Gather data - You have to know/understand the resource consumption of your SQL in order to know if it will perform well (both short and long term).
• Play "what if" - Try to determine what would happen if certain conditions occurred. Things like data volume increase and number of users can have an effect on how your query will perform. "What if" games will help you think about scalability.
• Instrument your code - Add a way to monitor and trace your code easily on demand.
• TTT (Test To Destruction) - Test, test, test....then test some more!

I'm looking forward to the event and hope you'll join me for the fun! Register soon and save your spot.

Starting young

I think this is seriously awesome. This group of students are using the Beginning Oracle SQL book I co-authored in their high school Oracle class. Yes, that's right. I said high school Oracle class. I just recently became aware that a teacher at this particular Colorado high school has been including Oracle curriculum in her computer science class for a decade or so. Apparently, these kids are using the book to help them prepare for the Oracle SQL certification exam.

It amazes me that these high school students are getting exposed to Oracle this early. Not only are they getting exposed but they are learning enough to take (and pass) the Oracle SQL exam. I even heard there have been some students over the years who have completed their DBA certifications as a result of this program. Heck, when I was in high school I had never touched a computer. Of course that was back in the stone age before computers were as prevalent as bottled water (which also wasn't really around when I was a kid)!

The fact that this educator has put this in her curriculum and continued to do so for so long is something special. She also takes some of her students to the RMOUG (Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group) Training Days each year as well. That shows real interest in the kids and a desire to let them see how their education is put into action in the real world. I think such an experience would have had a huge impact on me at that age.

So, hats off to this group of students and their teacher. Here's to all of them and the next generation of Oracle professionals!

What's important

In reviewing my blog activity over the past few years, I noticed that the first two years I had the blog I averaged about one post per week. The next year, my posts fell off to about one per month. Then last year, I only had 3 posts! Talk about decline!

I want to revitalize my blog and post 1-2 times per month. Given my blogging history, I realize this is a big change to commit to. I think part of me being successful is going to hinge on understanding where making time to blog more regularly fits into my life. My lack of posts hasn't been due to a lack of material or ideas...I have tons of those. My passion for work and interest in continuing to learn and grow professionally is as strong as ever. But I've found that almost everything has taken a back seat to spending time with my family. I get frustrated at times because I do want to blog and work more, but I don't want to be away from my family and I'm jealous of every minute of my time. One thing my daughter has taught me is that every moment, no matter how simple or ordinary it is, can be filled with wonder and joy. And, I really want to appreciate these moments fully. Now.

So, I'm going to work towards spending a few moments each day to compose some ideas and put them into posts that show up more frequently here. To each of you who read this blog, thank you. I'll do my best to provide useful information (along with some personal thoughts, rants and fun) so that the moments you graciously take to stop by and read are well spent.

Mac|Life and Tom Kyte

I usually have my nose in my Kindle or iPad while traveling, but there's always the time between take-off and 10,000 feet where electronics are verboten where I need something to occupy my time. As my time filler, I will often pick up a magazine to read and on yesterday's trip home from the Hotsos Symposium in Dallas, I grabbed a Mac|Life magazine to read.

I l-o-v-e my Mac. My entire household is Mac - MacBook Pro, iMac, iPhone, iPad, iTouch, and a Nano...the works. So I get a kick out of picking up a Mac related publication to read and always find some cool stuff that I didn't know about lurking in the pages. This time however, I found something that I knew quite a lot about and it really tickled me when I saw it. At the back of the magazine they have a How-To article, and this month's article was on how to Read PDFs with iBooks. The thing that most caught my notice was the use of Tom Kyte's book "Expert Oracle Database Architecture" in the demo. Click on the supplied link to see the whole article, but here's a quick shot of what originally caught my eye in the magazine:

I loved it that Tom's book was the example book they chose to demo the how-to. What can I say? The geek in me had spasms when my Mac and Oracle lives crossed paths like that. Admittedly, if it had been one of the Oracle books I had co-authored that they had used, you'd have had to pull me off the ceiling, but Tom's book was still pretty spiffy.  :)

Another Hotsos Symposium in the books

Another Hotsos Symposium is in the books (well, the main Symposium is over with only the Training Day remaining tomorrow). As usual, it was a phenomenal event. Hotsos has got it down to a science on how to deliver a 5 Diamond event and it just seems to get better every year. My thanks go out to everyone at Hotsos who work so hard to make this event happen (special nod to Rhonda B and Becky G...sounds like a new girl band, huh?). It's a week chock full of the best technical information on Oracle performance you're going to find anywhere, a lot of great food, superb networking and "get-to-know" you time with other attendees, and (last, but not least) a fantastic themed party night to top it all off. This year's party theme was "Steampunk". The attire I donned for this photo is indicative of the genre if you're wondering what the heck Steampunk is (more photos here).

Thanks also to everyone who came to hear me speak. I delivered two presentations this year and had fun with both.

I hope everyone who attended had as good a time as I did and for those who missed it, there's always next year!