Oracle Have A Half Open Kimono
Sometimes I think that the nice people at Oracle get the new information technology world. Sometimes I even think that they understand the web and it's associated technologies. Then they do something stupid. The latest crime? Publishing syndication feeds of various columns on the Oracle Technology Network but then putting the content on a site that is only available to registered users. I subscribed to the feed for Steven Feuerstein's PL/SQL questions and answers. It is, of course, a headline and excerpt only field - a particular bête noire of mine - so I clicked on an article headline in my feed reader expecting to be taken to the relevant article. But no, the information architects have decreed that you can't casually view this premium content, you have to sign in to with an oracle.com account. People, it's just the web. It's not like I'm trying to buy anything. Why should I have to sign in to a web site to read an article on the overhead of DBMS_OUTPUT? The only conclusion I can reach is that they really don't get this here web thing, and that makes me sad. In the interests of completeness the article I was referring to is here (have your oracle.com user name and password handy) and Steve's conclusion is largely correct. Although I would recommend using a package like Log 4 pl/sql rather than rolling your own (inevitably) halfcooked logging solution.