The D\/FW Unix Users Group (DFWUUG) unexpectedly and belatedly needed a speaker for its May 5 meeting. I volunteered to speak, in case they wanted to hear about Oracle architecture, but warned that I didn\u2019t have a presentation put together, so it would be very informal. Oracle sounds like an odd topic for a Unix meeting, but DFWUUG is liberal in its topic choices, as long as they are thought provoking.<\/p>\n
On the morning of May 5, I read in an email that I was scheduled as one of two speakers for that evening. I also noticed that the headline for my speech, created by DFWUUG, was \u201cStump the Oracle Guru.\u201d Uh oh. This is a bright bunch of people who doesn\u2019t suffer fools, and I didn\u2019t want to be offered up as their stump-the-chump challenge. Preemptively and hurriedly, I created a basic slide deck with an architecture diagram of an ancient version of Oracle (to keep it simple \u2013 current version architecture diagrams look the city plan for a large metropolitan area). I added a slide with the nine mistakes from my \u201cCommon Oracle Mistakes\u201d blog series.<\/p>\n
During the 45-minute presentation, I talked at a rudimentary level about Oracle architecture, then talked through the nine common mistakes. The perceptive questions and observations from the audience only served to remind me further of how bright this group is.<\/p>\n
Thanks, guys, for inviting me to the \u201cother side\u201d of the DFWUUG audience. You\u2019re a great group, and I enjoy your hospitality, humor, and intelligence.<\/p>\n