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’t 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.
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 “Stump the Oracle Guru.” Uh oh. This is a bright bunch of people who doesn’t suffer fools, and I didn’t 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 – current version architecture diagrams look the city plan for a large metropolitan area). I added a slide with the nine mistakes from my “Common Oracle Mistakes” blog series.
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.
Thanks, guys, for inviting me to the “other side” of the DFWUUG audience. You’re a great group, and I enjoy your hospitality, humor, and intelligence.
Everyone else, consider trying out the DFWUUG. The organization’s free, open to the public meetings are every first Thursday – see www.dfwuug.org for more information.
Mary Elizabeth McNeely