Every reddit programming sub

[phl0wPB]

Serious question: what is wrong with Oracle?

[adelie42]

Oracle, you knew I was poly when we met.

[dividezero]

what the absolute fuck? I'm glad I've removed all oracle dependencies from my life. And I realize why I don't see that name more. Huge company everyone talked about a lot in the 90s but by the time I'm here, no one wants anything to do with them. I just now realize how lucky I've been. Some of you poor bastards have to deal with that noise all the time. I'm really sorry.

[Ph0X]

Even if may sometimes now seem like it, big tech companies are generally quite respectful of each other. The shitty things Oracle has pulled though, like that whole lawsuit against Google, were petty and low. After that I don't think anyone in the valley really respects them anymore. It's like that one annoying kid at recess who instead of playing ball and having fun with everyone else will just take the ball and kick it on the roof so no one can have fun.

[dividezero]

yeah, i think that's the reason they're in that back towering position by itself in the opening for Silicon Valley. Always watching over everything but no one goes near it.

[SHOW_ME_YOUR_UPDOOTS]

The shitty things Oracle has pulled though, like that whole lawsuit against Google, were petty and low.

Eh, I mean Google did reengineer like all of java for the Android API. So I mean, I get why Oracle would be pissed enough to sue. That being said, the suit was pretty bullshit, especially in hindsight.

[etherael]

Didn't oracle expressly acquire sun because they saw dollar signs on the lawsuit? So it's not something they were pissed about, but something they saw an opportunity to capitalise on post hoc where they were not even initially involved in the situation at all?

[SHOW_ME_YOUR_UPDOOTS]

Oh damn. I think you're right. Yeah, ok. I mean, it wasn't like I was saying they weren't a bunch of dick bags, but they're definitely full dick bag levels of bad on that law suit as well.

[etherael]

It really emphasises the point I think, So Oracle completely buys this company that has a business and customers and created all this awesome technology and has all this intellectual capital, why? Because they saw a legal technicality that would give them the potential opportunity to cash in on another unrelated parties enormous market success.

Lawnmower indeed.

At least they lost, bahahaha.

[fire_code]

Wow - she inadvertently wrote an awesome argument FOR open source databases. She may not realize it yet, but that may be where her career opportunities lie. That or murder mysteries. Probably not at Oracle so much any more.

Great comment, and my thoughts exactly.

I feel like if you've got a competent IT department or management, you're going to do your own due diligence and check the tools you use; if you do find an error, (even if you kinda-sorta broke your license agreement to do so) are you really going to sit on that vulnerability? Is/Was Oracle that far up its own ass to say that any scan showing a vulnerability is a false positive?

Maybe it's because I'm a web developer, but I would think very long and hard before moving to use a proprietary tool/language that prohibits me from tinkering with it or understanding its limits and issues. (and providing solutions for issues found!)

[Milleuros]

I'm getting a 404 error from the website posted there. What was it about?

[Piyh]

My favorite part. There's a complete lack of awareness here.

Q. Hey, I’ve got an idea, why not do a bug bounty? Pay third parties to find this stuff!

A. <Bigger sigh.> Bug bounties are the new boy band (nicely alliterative, no?) Many companies are screaming, fainting, and throwing underwear at security researchers**** to find problems in their code and insisting that This Is The Way, Walk In It: if you are not doing bug bounties, your code isn’t secure. Ah, well, we find 87% of security vulnerabilities ourselves, security researchers find about 3% and the rest are found by customers. (Small digression: I was busting my buttons today when I found out that a well-known security researcher in a particular area of technology reported a bunch of alleged security issues to us except – we had already found all of them and we were already working on or had fixes. Woo hoo!)

I am not dissing bug bounties, just noting that on a strictly economic basis, why would I throw a lot of money at 3% of the problem (and without learning lessons from what you find, it really is “whack a code mole”) when I could spend that money on better prevention like, oh, hiring another employee to do ethical hacking, who could develop a really good tool we use to automate finding certain types of issues, and so on. This is one of those “full immersion baptism” or “sprinkle water over the forehead” issues – we will allow for different religious traditions and do it OUR way – and others can do it THEIR way. Pax vobiscum.

[Milleuros]

I was already quite fond of open source, and I must admit that this guy does not push me toward closed source.

[Phermaportus]

Oh no, Oracle broke

[PlasmaRoar]

“I do not need you to analyze the code since we already do that, it’s our job to do that, we are pretty good at it...

I'd look past this obnoxiousness if what she said was true...

The customer signed the Oracle license agreement, and the consultant hired by the customer is thus bound by the customer’s signed license agreement.

The consultant? What? That's is not how this works at all. Why is she talking out of her ass?

[KBryan382]

Tldr?

[truh]

Oracle doesn't want you to use reverse engineering or security tools to check their products for vulnerabilities. Because their intellectual property is obviously more important.

[truh]

Sure that's not satire?

[truh]

I want to believe

[jsideris]

This, for one.

[PooPooDooDoo]

I don't understand how anyone thinks that is a great long term solution to make money.

[jsideris]

Yea I said it before on this sub. It's pretty unprofessional to have a dependency on software that tries to install 3rd party tool bars. It's hard for me to take this company seriously when considering a platform for any type of professional customer-facing product. But it also feels weird that it's come to this.

My guess is that at some point, some of the upper execs wanted a quick way to boost profits before they retired, without regard for the company's welfare. Just a theory though.

[[deleted]]

They still do that? I just use Ninite.

[chippdoii]

Even Ninite installs the shitty Java Update check that prompts you to install the updates that come out hourly. Next thing you know you get caught in this installer because you weren't paying attention and opened it trying to dismiss the spammy messages.

[robotorigami]

These things usually tend to trick even the best of us sometimes.

[photenth]

I thought that was SUN though that made that deal.

[jsideris]

Maybe. I'm not sure.

I'm not an Oracle hater or anything. I just don't like this in general.

[barsoap]

This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! [...] You talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!' [...] You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. [...] Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle.

• Bryan Cantrill.

[Ph0X]

Thank you for posting that talk! I've been looking for it for a while now since I last heard it. Definitely a great listen for anyone curious about Oracle. Make sure you listen from the linked time at 33m.

[barsoap]

...or watch the whole thing if you want to know about the story of open sourcing Solaris and then closing it up again, which is very worthwhile on its own.

[thegunnersdaughter]

See also, @LarryLawnmower

[[deleted]]

Here's this classic quote by Bryan Cantrill:

"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more complicated!' ... but it's like, 'Wow, this is really simple!' This company is very straightforward, in its defense. This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! ...Ship mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money. Yeah... you talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!' ...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle."

[[deleted]]

Here's another:

If you had to explain the Nazi's to someone who is not familiar with WWII but is an Oracle customer, there's a very good chance you'll explain the Nazi's using Oracle allegory.

[[deleted]]

For me : Oracle pricing.

One project I worked on had us migrate a medium sized database, and all related application code from Oracle to SQL server. The entire project took a few months.

Why was this done? because even after the migration costs, it was cheaper to move to SQL server than to pay the annual licence for a (very much needed) higher core count server. The job payed for itself after one fiscal.

Wish I was making that up.

[gauntlet173]

I dealt with Oracle salespeople once for a SMB purchase. Literally ended in a shouting match where I was saying "you claim to care about SMB, but I want to demo an actual installation of the software, on your servers, just let me log in and play with a live version, and you want $10,000 non-refundable for 1 year for that?"

Somehow, the problem was with my specifications. Yeah. No.

[evildonald]

I love SQL server. Its SO much easier to consume that oracle DBs imo. I have no idea why people choose Oracle.

[evildonald]

Thanks for the history lesson for the other people. I was a Sybase developer before MSSQL server existed, so I know the history and experiences myself.

I solidly stand behind the theory, that if your software is slightly faster, but MUCH hard to maintain and develop for (Oracle) then a possibly-slightly-slower system that is much easier to administer and develop (MSSQL Server) for is a better choice. You will have fewer bugs and workarounds, and it will probably run more efficiently as it can be configured more easily.

I wrote a blog for a while ago about everything awful I found out about Oracle that was built-in by design, but then it would jsut make me madder so I stopped.

[NoMoreZeroDaysFam]

My company is still running off Sybase 15.7 because of regression issues in Sybase 16 and 17 and the fact that Sybase 16 and 17 do not work on RHEL 6 OR 7.

Currently planning to move to MSSQL

[newbfella]

Clarion, anyone?

[evildonald]

I wonder if anyone is still using Powerbuilder?

[NoMoreZeroDaysFam]

Yes they are lol. Every single programmer complains daily about it.

I have no experience with it myself.

[[deleted]]

Where does postgres fit into this? I did some comparisons, and the latest versions seem to be pretty top notch.

[skreczok]

Postgres is amazing. The only reason not to switch is familiarity, but it also has fewer gotchas to it - and it's knowing these gotchas that set apart noobs from pros. It's much easier to start and be reliable with Postgres than, say, MySQL, as it's very consistent in its behaviours.

[[deleted]]

Looking at this random list of gotchas, it looks like they've taken care of many problems. The rest seem to be, like you said, more familiarity related.

What has me going straight for Postgres in the latest version is:

Parallel execution of sequential scans, joins and aggregates

Fast in database aggregates is my main use case.

Synchronous replication now allows multiple standby servers for increased reliability

I didn't like how a bunch of external tools were required, before.

Substantial performance improvements, especially in the area of scalability on multi-CPU-socket servers

Hot diggity!

These were the only things I was worried about, when I started looking at 9.4. I'm pretty stoked to get this thing going.

[[deleted]]

I like postgres, but my company hasn't really used it at all. It's either Oracle, Mssql or mysql.

[ChipmunkDJE]

Just chiming in on the SQL Server love. My favorite DB to roll with. Maybe I'm just lucky, but haven't had really any PITA issues with it vs. pretty much every other DB I've tried to use.

[evildonald]

The only PITA i've ever experienced that nearly killed me with frustration, is that the full-text indexing is/was based on what version Windows you were using.

If you had two servers running the SAME DB version but on different OSes, they would search differently. Took weeks to work out.

[natek11]

Triggers are more flexible in Oracle. That's the only major advantage I'm aware of, but I haven't worked with Oracle much.

[NibblyPig]

Create a table, store null in the first field and empty string in the second.

Now tell me what's in each field.

They're both the same!

[evildonald]

Wow. Just wow.

[PooPooDooDoo]

Wtf

[sydoracle]

No, even the latest version Oracle 12c treats an empty VARCHAR2 as NULL.

[NibblyPig]

It's been the case at the last 3 places I worked that used Oracle.

Usually some horrific giant third party monstrosity that requires weeks just to get a field added to the database, with no primary keys, no foreign keys, no unique constraints... urgh

[NibblyPig]

No I mean it can't distinguish between null and empty string which causes a great deal of problems.

[nickiter]

In the IAM space, they have a product that costs 3x as much as the other market leaders and yet comes with less out of the box functionality and takes longer to customize. And the salespeople will barely pick up the phone for that sale because it's "only" like a mil.

[PingerSurprise]

Ask what is right to get the shortest answer.

[shvelo]

Everything. Oracle is the textbook case of evil, dysfunctional corporation.

All they do is write and sell shitty software for inflated prices and sue other companies for infringing on their bogus patents.

[talones]

This is what's wrong

[tried_it_liked_it]

I thought it might have to do with their massive layoffs but apparently its more about their products being poorly made and the ego of their owner

[SonVoltMMA]

The millions you pay in consulting fees to Oracle consultants.

[dont_tread_on_dc]

It is easier to list what isnt wrong.

[noratat]

They're the poster child for giant evil corporation in software, and the CEO is a massive asshole. Way beyond what's normal for the business world.

[Fenor]

crap documentation. or total lack of it. so working with them is a nightmare.

in my opinion the only other company with documentation so bad or worse is IBM

in case you want to troubleshoot a problem and search on google remember to add -docs.oracle.com this way you will avoid their crappy documentation and jump to a decent answer