After reading the threads about hating oracle and joining the club, I
realize that I am lucky. I have worked a month or so with Oracle, but
not enough to start to hate it.
This was for a job in 2002, and I was working as an intern for a small
software development company. My work involved mostly developing
form-based applications in MS Access, producing reports from data, and
so on. In the last month or so of my employment, there was one project
where I had to access an Oracle database.
When it came time to install it, my employer (who was also a developer
and provided the installation program) told me that he would install it
on the computer I used to work. He said that if I tried to do this
myself, I would become confused about all the options in the
installation program, and it could take me a day or two to do it
properly myself. He went through the installation on my computer,
expertly choosing the right option at every step (painful experience
developed from installing it himself several times). That worked, so I
was able to start working with the software soon after it was installed.
There were other, more important projects, so I did not get to work
with Oracle much. I remember using Sql Plus, but there as well my
employer guided me on using the software. I did not have to set up
tables or add data, just extract data from an Oracle database. Then, my
employment ended, and I have not worked with Oracle since then.
I have much more database experience now than I had then. My ignorance
of Oracle's defects at the time I was using it is probably the reason I
don't hate it. Let me repeat that: today, I don't hate Oracle. If I had
to work with Oracle again today, I would probably notice them quickly.
If I was not spared the pain of setting it up that some of you have
described on this forum, my attitude would probably be different.