Wednesday 7 November 2007

History of an Oracle professional

I have been in the IT business for many years now, and still I think it's an exciting and ever changing environment. I like that, because I like challenges and new technologies.
I have been working with Oracle products now from 1988 on.
Before that time I was into 3-D modelling and I tought databases and administrative programs were boring. I created programs, that generated 3-D pictures of houses with various light sources, that was exciting, though the effort to get that result was a couple months conversation with the computer terminal.
Still I tought it was boring to produce data-entry forms and reports of several feet long covered with numbers. How wrong I was, because from the moment I started to create database applications I was hooked, and I still am.
Luckily the technology has changed during the years. I started off with a terminal on a DEC VAX system. My first PC was not connected to a network. I used Oracle V5 on a DOS PC with extended memory (a total of 1 Mb, it cost a fortune). A year or so later I started to connect my PC to the Oracle database on the server using the terminal connection. I had to enter strange connection strings with lot's of single quotes, i believe up to 4 or 5 even, but it worked and it was magic. Moments of victory like this are the reason I am putting in all the effort.
In 1988 I had my first SQL*Forms 2.0 course. I liked the tool, because I was able to create programs to enter and retrieve data with ease and flexibility. It has been my love for a long time, until it was finally replaced by webdevelopment. But that's for a next post.

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