Yes, it did sortof destroy the foosball table… there were millions of little sugar particles on it. But it needed a good cleaning anyway so we decided to do in a peep before cleaning it. Rules were that points with the ball didn’t count, and the first one to score with the peep won. Woohoo!

After the game was over we gave the table a thorough cleaning… then a layer of silicone on the table surface and a brand new ball. Holy smokes the table is FAST!!! Sweet.

Last Friday I wrote about a client query that could be rewritten in a much more optimized manner. However rewriting it was a little tricky, involving a hierarchical query and a column that needed to calculate a value based on it’s parent, grand-parent, great-grand-parent, etc. Raj posted a very smart solution that used sys_connect_by_path to access this information - which is exactly how I tried to do it at first. However after rethinking the query I realized that there was a better way to do it with analytics.

So here’s the approach that I took and how I arrived at the solution.

The Problem

The root problem was that I wanted a simple method to access any column value from an arbitrary level in the hierarchy above my current level. For example if you look at the TURNER record in the result set, his UPLINE_SAL column needs to be the sum of the SAL column from three different records:
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I just spent almost $70 to fill my truck with gas. OUCH. This is why I’m shopping for a new (well used) car right now… I’m driving a lot these days and that’s a lot of money to spend on gas!!

…so if you know anyone who’s selling a car that has air, cruise, automatic transmission, and good gas mileage for like two grand then email me!

Dominic just posted a hint to the encyclopedia spine problem he posted last week. Sheesh… personally I think the hint totally gave it away. Or at least it gave away one solution.

Here’s what I came up with. I wonder if this is how Dominic solved the problem:
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Just a few days ago I was reading Dominic’s challenge to write a query that would give results like an Encyclopedia Spline. It apparently took over the entire day for another Dominic and I was planning to take it on myself too as soon as I had the time… but today another challenge came my way - but not just for entertainment, but for a real client. Basically I found myself looking at a 9000-word query (33 pages when I pasted it into MS Word). It was for a manufacturing client and it was pretty amazing… had been taking about 20-30 minutes but the guy added a single subquery and that plummeted the query to not even finishing in four hours.

Well we got the subquery thing rewritten and fixed the abysmal performance - but after analyzing the query I realized that the whole thing could be drastically improved by using a hierarchical query and SQL analytics. So I simplified the problem and ended up with a very interesting challenge for the day!

But before I share the challenge, let me give a brief overview of the original problem query. I analyzed it a bit and this was the basic structure:
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So my friend Jonathan Choe was over Wednesday night (the 17th). At about 8pm he was hungry and saw the package of peeps sitting on the table. Hasta la vista, numbers 9-11. Heh.

Just read Doug Burns’ interview from the Autumn 07 edition of AUSOUG’s Foresight magazine. It’s a fun read; Doug talks about how he got into technology and Oracle, the strengths and weaknesses of the Oracle RDBMS, and his addiction to the command line. But the part that jumped out at me the most was his comments about Oracle user groups - I wholeheartedly agree that they’re really important and I’m a huge supporter.

A strong user group is essential in my opinion. To have a strong user group, it’s important that it’s not organised for commercial gain, to argue the vendor’s case too vehemently (although talking up the product is okay if it’s a good one) or to be in the vendor’s pocket financially. However, it’s also important that the user group have a good relationship with the vendor so that there’s a circle of feedback that will hopefully improve both the product and service for the customer.

In the end, we all run into problems and it’s good for users to be able to get together, share their experiences and knowledge and passion for the software. I’d encourage as many people as possible to become involved. It’s a lot of fun and the more of us there are, the more we can achieve.

I know that there are lots and lots of DBAs in Chicago - you guys have no excuse not to come out to the user group meetings, especially when it’s 100% free and we meet right downtown!!! Let’s see you at the next meeting! (Probably in August; I think we’re shooting for about four per year right now.)

There’s a blues singer I like named Keb Mo. Way back in 1998 he released a record named Slow Down - and the title track of that record is one of my favorite blues tunes. The song was originally written by Kevin Moore and John Lewis Parker.

How many times have I listened to this song. Why do I always forget just how important it is to really slow down? Some of the sweetest memories I have are from the two summers I spent working at Camp Barakel in ‘99 and ‘00. Probably because for those two summers I really did slow down. Granted, some parts of camp flew by with dizzying speed… but the memories I savor the most are memories like those TAWG’s we had every Monday morning; just 4-5 hours of “time alone with God” to reflect, pray, sing, or just thank him for the amazing beauty we were surrounded with. Usually I trekked out into Huron National Forest. I could spend hours - even days - out there. It was fuel for my soul.

And I think it still is, even though I forget so much. I’ve been reminded recently by friends planning camping trips. I’ve been reminded recently on the lakefront trail since I started jogging again. I’m reminded again right now, sitting in Naperville by the river trail. I don’t think nature is “more spiritual” than the city or anything. It’s just that often it makes me catch my breath. Beauty offers a glimpse of the divine whether it’s observed in a sunset or a symphony. It feels so refreshing to just stop, sit down by the river and just not think about anything. And to know the one who made it; who painted this beautiful picture we’re living in. It’s a deep breath of fresh air. I need that every once in awhile.

And it continues.

8. Suffocated after being sealed in a plastic bag for two weeks then thrown out the window of a truck while speeding down the interstate. The truck was westbound on the Eisenhower (I-290) and the peep was hurled from the window at the exact moment the truck passed under the Sacramento Blvd bridge. The truck was in the left-most lane and the peep was tossed from the driver-side (left) window - over the top of the truck to the right, into oncoming traffic. The peep was observed in the rear-view mirror exploding as it hit the ground between two lanes. The driver of the car behind the truck seemed to wonder what had just happened.

Other posts:
Peep Jousting
Peep Jousting Results
Peep #6
Peep #7