Subject: The New DBA FAQs, Part 4

From: Kevin Loney <"75663,327"@compuserve.com>
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 13:53:06 -0500

The New DBA FAQs
The DBA Glossary of Terms

Part 4 in a series.

*****
This article may not be published.

19-NOV-96 First posting. Kevin Loney

*****

References: CHANGE_ON_INSTALL: 20 Changes to Make after Installing Oracle, OOW 1996
Presentation (Loney/Viscusi)

*****

DBA GLOSSARY OF TERMS - WELL, MAYBE.

by Kevin Loney


(an excerpt appears in the Jan/Feb 97 issue of ORACLE Magazine)

In no particular order:

Cluster The technical term for a group of DBAs.

Unlimited Infinity, which is equal to 2,147,483,645.

Unique How you catch a constraint violation: unique up on it.

Thread Ethel Mertz' husband on "I Love Lucy".

Extent The limit, as in "I've reached the extent of my patience with my users."

PCTFREE Decaffeinated PCT.

RAID Kills bugs dead.

Batch A group of cookies.

Migrated Row A row that went south.

Recursive Call See Call, Recursive.

Connect By The opposite of Disconnect By.

Outer join The opposite of an innie join.

Snapshot What happened when Mr. Snap wandered into the crossfire.

Optimal (adj): Packaged software that requires no modification to work perfectly is an optimal
illusion.

Patch The missing link.

Tuning A type of fork or consultant. See also Dessert and Salad.

Constraint A device used to restrain administrators who applied one patch too many.

Call, Recursive See Recursive Call.

Foreign Key A key that has not yet been granted citizenship.

Export A former Port.

Direct Path The shortest distance between two points.

Data (adj.) ex: "He went data way."

Cache See ATM.

Rollback One of the moves in the Macarena.

Import (n.) ex: "Your crisis is of no import to me."

Raw device Disk tartare.

Reserved Word A word that called ahead.

PMON The letter after O, Mon.

CASE Tools Systems that involve planning what you're going to do before you actually do it.
Most people support their use, so long as it's someone else who has to use them.

Pro*C C that has given up its amateur status.

Clause Part of a SQL statement. See also Santa.

NOT NULL In younger releases, this constaint is called NULL - NOT!.

Index Where you find boards (in decks).

Histograms Singing telegrams, delivered by snakes.

Third Normal Form Abnormal. How many "normal" forms can there be?

Candidate Key A key running for the primary key election.

Check A type of constraint. The smaller the check, the more constraining it is.

SQL Better than the ORIGNL.

Commit What you do with records and DBAs.

Hints A brand of ketchup; the result of a merger between Heinz and Hunts.

Free lists Lists with a vote.

Temporary Segments Objects that consume vast resources before quickly disappearing, like
teenagers at dinner on Friday nights.

Cursor That little blinking thing on your terminal.

Pipe WARNING: Can cause cancer in lab rats.

Schema Heart disease.

Fast Refresh 20-second timeout.

Packages Noticeably safer to open since the Unabomber was arrested.

Sequence See Quence. See Quence run. Run, Quence, run.

Deadlock A clipping from Jerry Garcia's hair.

View What you would see from your office if you had an office instead of a cubicle.

Redo To comb your hair back into place after pulling it every which way during a tense recovery.

Default (n.) "I didn't do it; default lies somewhere else."


**************
Kevin Loney is the author of the ORACLE DBA Handbook, 7.3 Edition, coauthor of ORACLE: The
Complete Reference, Electronic Edition, and coauthor of Advanced ORACLE Tuning and
Administration, all published under Osborne/McGraw-Hill's Oracle Press imprint. See
www.osborne.com for scripts and sample chapters.

[Top | Back | Home ]