It seems that it is time to repost this that I originally posted a few months ago .. it is at http://groups.google.com/group/Oracle-PLSQL/browse_frm/thread/a53fab1fe371958b/7e72fbcd472e0659?hl=en%07e72fbcd472e0659 but it is quoted here in its entirety ------------------------- One of the things that I have noticed on here is that there seems to be a bit of an issue with folks clearly laying out what the actual problem that they are having and what they would expect a solution to allow them to do. So in the interests of keeping this place civilized and as helpful to as many folks as possible here are a few things that folks can bear in mind when they ask a question
1) Be succinct in your problem statement. Do not include a 200 line select statement if you can demonstrate the issue in 5-10 lines. 2) Be complete in your problem statement. I know this sounds like it runs counter to #1 but it doesnt. If you don't tell the entire problem that you are trying to solve, the chances are very good that you will get either a partial answer that will not apply to the whole situation or a needlessly specific or needlessly generic answer. 3) If how your data is structured is imporant to the question at hand .. include an example. You dont need to dump a 1000 row table but it might be nice to see how a couple of typical scenarios play out. 4)Write in "normal english". Do not use txt-speak. Abbreviations are fine but there are folks on here that are eager to help but hate to wade through stuff that looks like it was typed on a phone We all have full keyboards and it really doesnt take that long to write out a full word. Honest! 5) We will not do your homework. 6) We will always assume that anyone posting on here is a professional programmer/DBA (or at least studying towards becoming one) unless you tell us otherwise. This means that you are going to be expected to have some basic skills so if you ask a question that shows that you dont have them for God's sake say something like "I am a brand new programmer just starting out with Oracle". If you do not you will get roasted and will not have a pleasant experience 7)Remember that most of us that answer regularly have many years experience (I have 20is. .. my first Oracle install was version 5ish on an IBM mainframe) and it is unhelpful when you tell us that we just dont understand how Oracle works and I can pretty much guarantee you will not get much help after that. 8) If you like the answer that someone gives you and it helps you .. come back and say thanks. We all LOVE it to know that we are appreciated and they we really did help someone. I am sure that one of the other regular "answerers" has a thought or two to add. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And finally a personal note .. i have started two new groups related to Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence and Information Visualization. One is for recruiters and consultants to hook up and one is strictly for practictioners in the field. Feel free to join, or not. Contribute, or not. It is a very important and quickly growing specialty, especially given the economic downturn. My company just cut our IT group quite substantially and the only group that was relatively unaffected was my 6 person BI/DW group (I lost one very part time intern). I also dont want them to be Oracle specific even though that is my specialty. Alternate tools, open source solutions, interesting algorithms, helpful heuristics, all are welcome. At the risk of sounding like I am blatantly blogwhoring (which of course I am) ... they are http://groups.google.com/group/business-intelligence-and-data-warehousing?hl=en and http://groups.google.com/group/business-intelligence-and-data-warehousing-jobs?hl=en. I make no money off these sites, and I have a full time job that pays quite well so I am not wrangling for a consulting contract but I welcome and encourage consultants to toss in their ideas since they often get to tackle the most interesting problems. I also welcome purely academic research into semantic webs , deailing with unstructured data and data mining since in my view these are all subspecialties of BI. My only goal with these sites, as with this one, is to share ideas, tips and trips, opinions, tool reviews (including things not to buy), what folks think of so called BI appliances and probaly a hundred things that I havent thought of. Anyway, enough babbling for one night. Need to take a nap before the day job begins. Everyone have a great day! Rob --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Oracle PL/SQL" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Oracle-PLSQL?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
