developers joke

Yesterday evening I had to deal with the product of a really funny Oracle developer:
I had requested a CRS patch for Bug:8328904 under really high preassure (Management involved). With a target date of 3rd week of March 2010, I got the patch on 19-Mar-2010 about 2pm local time. Just in time!
So I had the fun to patch a test system on Sunday evening. As allways, it's not that easy as it sounds:
after a slow, but successful preparation of one node and a really easy patch, at restart of the CRS I got

/etc/init.d/init.crs: [[: not found

Ok. I knew this Patch was knitted with really hot needles, so after some checking we applied this diff:

 72c72
< if [[ "$CMD" = "init.crs" && "$PARENT_CMD" != "startpar" ]]; then
---
> if [ "$CMD" = "init.crs" ] && [ "$PARENT_CMD" != "startpar" ]; then

All the patching ended at Monday, 2am.

Of course, I updated my SR on Monday morning with this slightly detail.
The answer was overwhelming:

/etc/init.d/init.crs: [[: not found encountered while startup is a known issue and bug is already filed.( bug# 9131555).

The problem is with the 11.1.0.7. bundle 2 . Since the patch was created on top of 11.1.0.7 bundle 2 hence the same error got passed on. The workaround is correct and is same as mentioned in the above mentioned bug. So no problem it is a supported workaround.

What a funny developer!
delivering a patch for a escalated but just in time, delivering another known within it.

Who can tell me why i was not laughing?

Job, hobby or passion?

In my last post I summarized the answers I got on a mailing list for the short question:

what ist the fastest SQL you can create?

maybe the most remarkable answer was

I think y'all need a hobby- and one that doesn't include oracle!

Well, maybe I have to answer. Which is not that easy.
Let's try to confine a little bit: Let's start with Job. I see a job as a work which I get paid for. So i need a job to make a living.
At first view a hobby is a totally contradiction to a Job: I do it at my own will and possible even spend money to do it. A hobby is something I do to have fun.
But sometimes it's not that easy.
Even if job and hobby are a contradiction in money and choice, they are not imperatively a contradiction in fun.
Assume, you have a job which at the same time is fun. Why not enjoy this: instead of paying for fun, you get paid for! Maybe it's ok if I call it an avocation?
Of course, it's not that easy all the time, but nothing is that easy, not even a hobby ;-)
I see one more bonus in this situation: I assume I'm quite good in the tasks I get paid for. And at least at the moment I get a fair salary. I hope, both will at least stay at this level for a long time.

This all leads me to an answer:

I have a job in IT, especially Oracle. Why do I need a hobby?

fastest SQL?

Recently I asked what ist the fastest SQL you can create? on oracle-l mailing list.
It was a kind of challenge. But not a real clever one.
I was more interrested in the way people think and react to this question than in a particular SQL or result.

Here are some summaries for those who are interrested:
There where 33 replies (until now), these can be grouped by some categories (some mails belong to more than one):

select 1 from dual; was suggested by Niall Litchfield and Kevin Lidh.
Don Granaman showed an imprived version with a view on sys.v_dual, but Niall and Norman Dunbar argued, that's what fast_dual was introduced for.

Niall and Wolfgang Breitling asked for better specifications for the quest, which I left open by intention.

Another approach started with exit; by Daniel Fink. Robert Freeman called this not a SQL, but Grant Allen (--) and Jaromir D.B. Nemec ("empty statement") tried the same direction.
Job Miller suggested the qhole quest as a kind of trick question With the answer You look at the statement/business logic and decide that you don't need to run that statement at all. and Daniel gave a real world example for this effect.


Toon Koppelaars and Andre van Winssen both suggested query result cache. I tried to test this but could not find a suficient measurement. Brandon Allen raised the method by checking elapsed_time down to microseconds from v$sql/v$sqlstats.

Wolfgang did one step further with his client side cache.

A discussion about other products like purple and Mauve by Jack C. Applewhite, Christopher Boyle, John Piwowar and Jason Heinrich.

I think y'all need a hobby- and one that doesn't include oracle! by Kellyn Pedersen and Kathy Duret seems to be worth a seperate blog!

NOTE:Unident of disk

I just wondered where the lines

*** 2010-03-12 10:25:13.862
NOTE:Unident of disk:/appl/oracle/asm_disks/c3t60014380024D39280000A000039B0000d0s0_eva
NOTE:Unident of disk:/appl/oracle/asm_disks/c3t60014380024D39280000A00003A10000d0s0_eva

came from in my +ASMS744_rbal_3119.trc trace file every minute.

As i did not find any matches for NOTE:Unident of disk in MOS, I tried to open a SR there. Just in the preperation, I checked the status of this particular Disk:

select header_status, path 
from v$asm_disk 
where path like '%c3t60014380024D39280000A000039B0000d0s0%';

HEADER_STATUS PATH
------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
CANDIDATE     /appl/oracle/asm_disks/c3t60014380024D39280000A000039B0000d0s0_eva

So I added these disks to a DiskGroup and the trace file did not grow any further.

I didn't found anything about Unident of disk in the docu, MOS or google. sadly.