DBA and PL/SQL Development Tools (Poll Results Discussed)

I’ve been thinking about my DBA and PL/SQL tool choices recently, so I thought I would go out to Twitter and ask the masses what they are using.

As always, the sample size is small and my followers have an Oracle bias, so you can decide how representative you think these number are…

Here was the first question.

What tool do you do *most* of your Oracle DBA work with?

I expected SQL*Plus and SQLcl to be the winner here, and I was right. A lot of DBAs are still “old school” where administration is concerned. It may be tough for a beginner to use these command line tools, but over time you build up a list of scripts that mean it is much quicker than using GUI tools for most jobs.

SQL Developer had a pretty good showing at nearly 28%. I’m glad people are finding value in the DBA side of SQL Developer. TOAD/other were not doing so well. I know there are a lot of companies out there trying to make money with DBA tools, but maybe this is a tough market for them. Of course there are cross platform tools that may do well with other engines, even though they don’t register so well with the Oracle crowd.

I guess the real surprise was less than 8% using EM Cloud Control. Having said that, I’m considering ditching it myself. I like the performance pages and we use it as a centralized scheduler for backups, but I’m not sure our usage justifies the crazy bloat that is Cloud Control. It would be nice to remove all those agents and clean up! This figure of less than 8% is all the more surprising when you consider it is free (no cost option). Of course total cost of ownership is not just about the price tag…

This was the next question.

What tool do you do most of your PL/SQL development with?

I was expecting SQL Developer to do well here, but I was surprised by how low TOAD was in the list. I’ve worked at a few companies over the years where TOAD was a staple. I guess the consistent improvements to SQL Developer and a price tag of “free” have broken the TOAD strangle hold.

There were a few comments about Allround Aautomations PL/SQL Developer, which I used in one company many years ago. If I could have added an extra line in the poll, I would have put that as an option, because I know it is still popular. There were also mentions of DataGrip and a number of people using VS code with assorted extensions, including Oracle Developer Tools for VS Code.

Sadly, but understandably, SQL*Plus and SQLcl were low on this list. I’m an old timer, so I’ve had jobs where this was the only option. At one job I wrote my own editor in Visual Basic, then rewrote it in Java. Once SQL Developer (known as Raptor at the time) was released I stopped working on my editor…

When you’re doing “proper” PL/SQL development, it’s hard not to use an IDE. They just come with so much cool stuff to make you more productive. These days I tend to mostly write little utilities, or support other coders, so I find myself writing scripts in UltraEdit and compiling them in SQLcl. If I went back to hard core PL/SQL development, I would use an IDE though…

For fun I ended with this question.

SQL Developer and TOAD have a fight to the death. Who wins?

SQL Developer won, but it came out with a detached retina and some broken ribs!

Remember, you are most productive using the tools that suit your working style, but you should always keep your eyes open for better ways of working. Choice is a wonderful thing!

Cheers

Tim…

Video : DBMS_SESSION.SLEEP Replaces DBMS_LOCK.SLEEP in Oracle Database 18c

In today’s video we discuss a simple, but significant change introduced in Oracle database 18c.

The video is based on this post.

The star of today’s video is a rather giggly Joel PΓ©rez. We did more takes for this clip than you can imagine, and I still ended up using one of the first. πŸ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Qualified Expressions Enhancements in Oracle Database 21c (part 2)

In today’s video we demonstrate some more of the enhancements to qualified expressions in Oracle database 21c.

You can see the first part here. This is the second video based on this article.

If you are new to qualified expressions, and don’t already know about the FOR LOOP enhancements in 21c, these may be helpful.

The star of today’s video is Kim Berg Hansen, who is an Oracle ACE Director and long time SQL and PL/SQL developer and advocate.

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Qualified Expressions Enhancements in Oracle Database 21c (part 1)

In today’s video we demonstrate some of the enhancements to qualified expressions in Oracle database 21c.

The video is based on this article.

If you are new to qualified expressions, and don’t already know about the FOR LOOP enhancements in 21c, these may be helpful.

The star of today’s video is Mike Hichwa. Everything you know and love about APEX started with this guy!

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA) for PL/SQL

In today’s video we give a demonstration of Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA) for PL/SQL. SODA is a feature of Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS),
but this PL/SQL interface for SODA was introduced in Oracle Database 18c.

The video is based on this article.

You might find these useful.

The star of today’s video is the son of Dan Iverson. Dan, not his son, is an Oracle ACE focusing on PeopleSoft and Oracle Cloud Architect. He’s also in Army National Guard, which means he’s already prepared for the zombie apocalypse! πŸ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Video : SQLCL and Liquibase : Deploying Oracle Application Express (APEX) Applications

In today’s video we’ll give a quick demonstration of deploying an APEX application using the SQLcl implementation of Liquibase.

I Know what you’re thinking. Didn’t I do this video two weeks ago? The answer is yes and no. This video is very similar to the Liquibase video I did two weeks ago, but that was using the Liquibase Pro client. This video uses the SQLcl implementation of Liquibase, and more specifically the runOracleScript tag to achieve the same thing.

The video is based on this article, which has an example of deploying an APEX workspace and an APEX application.

If you are new to Liquibase and SQLcl, you might find it easier to start with these.

The stars of today’s video are the offspring of Jeff Smith. I had been annoying Jeff on Twitter DMs while he was meant to be on holiday, so I agreed to pay him back by turning his children into international megastars. I take no responsibility for how they handle the fame! πŸ˜‰

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Liquibase : Deploying Oracle Application Express (APEX) Applications

Today’s video is a quick demonstration of deploying an Oracle Application Express (APEX) application using Liquibase.

The video is based on a new article of the same name, which covers the deployment of both APEX workspaces and APEX applications using Liquibase.

Here’s some other content you might find useful.

The star of today’s video is Jorge Rimblas, making a welcome return to the channel, along with some serious reverb. πŸ™‚ Last time we saw Jorge was in a boxing gym, and his daughters have also taken the spotlight for one video.

Cheers

Tim…

Video : APEX_DATA_PARSER : Convert simple CSV, JSON, XML and XLSX data to rows and columns

Today’s video is a quick demonstration of using the APEX_DATA_PARSER package to convert simple CSV, JSON, XML and XLSX data into rows and columns.

If you want the copy/paste examples and the test files, you can get them from this article.

Yet another reason why you should always install APEX in your databases.

The star of today’s video is Kosseila.HD, also known as BrokeDBA, complete with sun glasses, basket ball and a rattling watch. πŸ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Returning REF CURSORs from PL/SQL : Functions, Procedures and Implicit Statement Results

Today’s video is a demonstration of returning REF CURSORs from PL/SQL using functions, procedures and implicit statement results.

I was motivated to do this after a conversation with my boss. He’s from a .NET and SQL Server background, and was a bit miffed about not being able to use a SELECT to pass out variable values from a procedure, like you can in T-SQL. So I piped up and said you can using Implicit Statement Results and another myth was busted. I guess most PL/SQL developers don’t use this, and I don’t either, but you should know it exists so you can be a smart arse when situations like this come up. πŸ™‚

The video is based on these articles.

The star of today’s video is Bryn Llewellyn of PL/SQL fame, and more recently Yugabyte.

Cheers

Tim…

Video : SQLcl and Liquibase : Automating Your SQL and PL/SQL Deployments

In today‘s video we’ll give a quick demonstration of applying changes to the database using the Liquibase implementation in SQLcl.

The video is based on this article.

You might also find these useful. The secure external password store is a good way to make connections with SQLcl. If you support a variety of database engines, you may prefer to use the regular Liquibase client.

The star of today’s video is Steve Karam from Delphix. πŸ™‚

Cheers

Tim…