I’m running a week long poll on Twitter.
After Google, where do you go for Oracle help, first? Please answer, then RT. If 'other', please specify in your RT.
— Jeff Smith 🥃 ☜ (@thatjeffsmith) October 20, 2017
The problem with Twitter is that you’re limited to only 140 characters, so I’m afraid I failed to adequately word the question. My intent is to see where you go to ASK for help…literally. In the form of a question. Or, perhaps just to see what folks have said in answer to previous invocations of your question.
Many of these questions start with ‘How do I..’ or ‘Why does…’
I spend a good amount of time trying to help folks in many different forums, spaces, places, and dimensions. This blog, twitter, and all of the places you can probably imagine.
I’d like to ask you another question: which of these resources do you find to be most valuable when it comes to being able to help yourself? That is, there is no interaction with another person…as least directly.
[poll id=”2″]
But What About My Oracle Support (MOS) ???
You pay for support. Not everyone has access to it. Even customers who do pay for it often only grant a few employees with access to the support channel.
I know how valuable My Oracle Support is. I often have to remind folks that their Oracle Database support contract ALSO covers them for questions with SQL Developer, Data Modeler, SQlcl, and ORDS.
I’m looking to get insight on where folks go for help, and said place are not behind some sort of wall, like MOS.
9 Comments
If I can’t AskJeff than Oracle Docs followed be Oracle Base. (That dude is smart) Reality is 99% of the time, once I’ve focused my question then the Docs pretty much do the job. When that does not work, then I start a dialog with someone smarter than me. You know who you are, Jeff. 🙂
“Something else”: Steven Feuerstein’s “Oracle PL/SQL Programming” rarely leaves my desk. Also, Tom Kyte’s tomes, though dated, are where I go for the internals. Second choice for me would whatever Stack Overflow link shows up first in a Google search.
I can’t answer the Twitter-question, because (beside the fact that I don’t twitter) it implies that my primary resource is Google 🙂
Google is my last resort if my favourite search machines can’t answer my question.
I like OTN – not because you always get the best answer but because you can learn a lot about mistakes you can make along your way to the proper solution.
I prefer trying to solve a problem consulting the official docs – it helps to learn about the “why”. If this does not work Oracle Base will give me a recipe for a solution, but that’s less fun.
MOS is still the ultimate source – when all sites failed/to get more descriptive information/want to hear straight from Horse’s mouth, MOS is the one.
Jeff,
I personally feel AskTom is good, but the recent take of AskTom by Connor/Chirs is not worth as how Tom kyte does it for years.
Here is one such example http://tinyurl.com/y7yxy3r8
we have provided the Importance of Version of Oracle database while answering questions in Asktom in the “AskTom feedback page”
without using the right version of Oracle database while answering AskTom question – would be like a FALSE KNOWLEDGE.
So these days we go for Oracle documentation and Oracle base blog which looks far good enough than AskTom team responses.
No one could be Tom, other than Tom. And to reflect that, AskTom was re-branded to AskTOM (the oracle masters).
The only other thing I’ll say is that it’s a resource. You need to know enough to know how to take the information there, just like from Docs or someplace else, to figure out a course of action for your problem at hand.
I hope at the end of the day, no matter where you find it, you are able to find what you need to build and deliver awesome value to your customers using our technology. If I can ever help make that easier, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
I like the official docs to figure out if a capability or feature applies to the problem I’m solving. I love oracle base for a solid demo of how to install/implement/use the feature. I use asktom to figure out what I’m doing wrong when I adjust the basic implementation to meet my needs.
The otn community should be a better place, all in all, but it gets frustrating to see questions that have some follow-up but no final answer.
Stack overflow.
Thanks Joseph! I hope you voted in the Twitter poll? SO is winning that one by double digit % points so far.