Aug 2: Why you can't just say 'Stop feeding the troll' ...
... and walk away.
In the course of the past year, I've heard more than one person suggest that Jonathan Lewis should stop debunking Don Burleson's arguments. Their opinion is that it makes Jonathan look narrow-minded and spiteful and that he should simply ignore Don, stop giving him extra publicity and he'll go away. Here's an alternative point of view.
1) When Don doesn't like what you're saying, he threatens you with legal action sometimes. In fact, that's an unscientific point of view because it's only based on my own experience rather than a significant sample. What I trust is this. If I turn round and call Jonathan an axe-wielding child murderer who knows nothing about Oracle, I'm confident he'd protest and want to know why I thought such a thing. If I produced the evidence, I've no idea what his reaction would be (because it's so unlikely), but I once said something a bit harsh about him and his reaction was along the lines of 'Really? Do you think so? Can you point me to some examples of why you think that?'. I've also said a few harsh things about Don. Some he reacted warmly to (probably more warmly than I would have!) but one resulted in what I can only describe as a barrage of emails, some containing legal threats. Before people start suggesting that Don's just a nice guy with a different approach to problems, they should know that. In my limited experience, Jonathan revels in argument and Don pretends to in public, but crushes it in private. Oh, just in case you're wondering what I said?
'... we should remember how many people might be taken in by these guys!"
If you're a casual visitor or new to this Oracle world, please consider the possibility that we don't just beat up on someone for fun, but because they attack key community contributors.
2) I was slightly (and I only mean slightly) frightened of writing this blog post. Because I'll no doubt bring on Don's wrath again and my partner will be less than pleased. But think about that. Don might frighten me off telling the truth which is no mean trick, let me tell you! So, on behalf of myself and others in the community who I know might be more circumspect for perfectly valid reasons, can I mirror Don's comment back to him?
"STOP THREATENING ME"
Everything I've heard in private conversation suggests that Don's mis-information and aggressive antics are well-known in the community. Is this a man you *want* to play a key role in your community, private legal threats and all?
3) This is the most significant point. Let's re-read that statement ...
"Here is an an example of an Oracle 10g database with an undersized log buffer, in this example 512k:
What utter nonsense, and all the subsequent obfuscation doesn't change that. I would explain why it's utter nonsense but others have done that job far better than I could. Suffice to say, I would (gently) correct anyone on their first database tuning course who suggested that was the problem here. I suppose that's one significant down-side to any 'debate' with Don. The central weakness of the original argument is lost. Should Don explain why that excerpt proves the log buffer is under-sized or, alternatively says 'Ooops, slip-up! Sorry about that' (I won't hold my breath) then we can get back to the debate of whether Jonathan is being too technical or not. That's the issue here. Far more than making mistakes, engineering the highest possible google rankings from the lightest possible content or whatever else. An honourable person (and Don portrays himself as a man stuffed full of 'honour') admits their mistakes, welcomes the correction and apologises. I've done it many times myself.
4) I didn't comment on Jonathan's blog or the related OTN thread, despite being fairly annoyed with Don's usual nonsense. Why? Because it might have been deleted from the blog as it appears Jonathan will be deleting some comments to try to keep the debate technical. As for the OTN thread, it looked to me like Jonathan had been asked to stop the debate, did so, and then was jumped on when he told others to do the same. Well, no-one can stop me writing whatever I want to here except Don's lawyers.
5) I know some people might think I want to drag out a pointless debate. First, I don't think that it is pointless, it's about honesty and decent training for people working their way through the Oracle mine-field. (Personally, I think Jonathan's approach might be too technical if you're starting out, but that doesn't mean it needs to be replaced by false-hoods.) Second, I'm going to switch off comments on this post (which I never thought I would) because this is not about some community free-for-all at Don's expense, but about the importance of telling the truth rather than plumping for an expedient silence and letting the big guy win (the big guy being the one with the expensive lawyers). However, should Don reply (and he will, but I hope he decides not to, just to be contrary. I don't need it.), then I'll consider whether to add his missives as comments here. Perhaps I shouldn't have warned you, let him reply, produced his replies and then you could have seen what the man's really like in private communications.
I suppose I'd better phone my lawyers to warn them. How sad.
I decided to post this in a technical blog because my current site is full of people clicking links to Don's sites because it's so difficult to avoid them on Google. If Don stops posting inaccurate information or at least apologises when he does so and stops attacking significant contributors to the community then I'll stop discussing this. Believe me, I'd *love* to stop discussing this because I have better things to do with my life.
Until that time, as Edmund Burke said ... ""All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." (It might sound a little melodramatic in this context, but stop to think about it.)
P.S. I'm very p*ssed off that I cluttered the technical blog with this. I'll need to make up for it at the weekend.
In the course of the past year, I've heard more than one person suggest that Jonathan Lewis should stop debunking Don Burleson's arguments. Their opinion is that it makes Jonathan look narrow-minded and spiteful and that he should simply ignore Don, stop giving him extra publicity and he'll go away. Here's an alternative point of view.
1) When Don doesn't like what you're saying, he threatens you with legal action sometimes. In fact, that's an unscientific point of view because it's only based on my own experience rather than a significant sample. What I trust is this. If I turn round and call Jonathan an axe-wielding child murderer who knows nothing about Oracle, I'm confident he'd protest and want to know why I thought such a thing. If I produced the evidence, I've no idea what his reaction would be (because it's so unlikely), but I once said something a bit harsh about him and his reaction was along the lines of 'Really? Do you think so? Can you point me to some examples of why you think that?'. I've also said a few harsh things about Don. Some he reacted warmly to (probably more warmly than I would have!) but one resulted in what I can only describe as a barrage of emails, some containing legal threats. Before people start suggesting that Don's just a nice guy with a different approach to problems, they should know that. In my limited experience, Jonathan revels in argument and Don pretends to in public, but crushes it in private. Oh, just in case you're wondering what I said?
'... we should remember how many people might be taken in by these guys!"
If you're a casual visitor or new to this Oracle world, please consider the possibility that we don't just beat up on someone for fun, but because they attack key community contributors.
2) I was slightly (and I only mean slightly) frightened of writing this blog post. Because I'll no doubt bring on Don's wrath again and my partner will be less than pleased. But think about that. Don might frighten me off telling the truth which is no mean trick, let me tell you! So, on behalf of myself and others in the community who I know might be more circumspect for perfectly valid reasons, can I mirror Don's comment back to him?
"STOP THREATENING ME"
Everything I've heard in private conversation suggests that Don's mis-information and aggressive antics are well-known in the community. Is this a man you *want* to play a key role in your community, private legal threats and all?
3) This is the most significant point. Let's re-read that statement ...
"Here is an an example of an Oracle 10g database with an undersized log buffer, in this example 512k:
Top 5 Timed Events
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ % Total
Event Waits Time (s) DB Time Wait Class
log file parallel write 9,670 291 55.67 System I/O
log file sync 9,293 278 53.12 Commit
CPU time 225 43.12
db file parallel write 4,922 201 38.53 System I/O
control file parallel write 1,282 65 12.42 System I/O"What utter nonsense, and all the subsequent obfuscation doesn't change that. I would explain why it's utter nonsense but others have done that job far better than I could. Suffice to say, I would (gently) correct anyone on their first database tuning course who suggested that was the problem here. I suppose that's one significant down-side to any 'debate' with Don. The central weakness of the original argument is lost. Should Don explain why that excerpt proves the log buffer is under-sized or, alternatively says 'Ooops, slip-up! Sorry about that' (I won't hold my breath) then we can get back to the debate of whether Jonathan is being too technical or not. That's the issue here. Far more than making mistakes, engineering the highest possible google rankings from the lightest possible content or whatever else. An honourable person (and Don portrays himself as a man stuffed full of 'honour') admits their mistakes, welcomes the correction and apologises. I've done it many times myself.
4) I didn't comment on Jonathan's blog or the related OTN thread, despite being fairly annoyed with Don's usual nonsense. Why? Because it might have been deleted from the blog as it appears Jonathan will be deleting some comments to try to keep the debate technical. As for the OTN thread, it looked to me like Jonathan had been asked to stop the debate, did so, and then was jumped on when he told others to do the same. Well, no-one can stop me writing whatever I want to here except Don's lawyers.
5) I know some people might think I want to drag out a pointless debate. First, I don't think that it is pointless, it's about honesty and decent training for people working their way through the Oracle mine-field. (Personally, I think Jonathan's approach might be too technical if you're starting out, but that doesn't mean it needs to be replaced by false-hoods.) Second, I'm going to switch off comments on this post (which I never thought I would) because this is not about some community free-for-all at Don's expense, but about the importance of telling the truth rather than plumping for an expedient silence and letting the big guy win (the big guy being the one with the expensive lawyers). However, should Don reply (and he will, but I hope he decides not to, just to be contrary. I don't need it.), then I'll consider whether to add his missives as comments here. Perhaps I shouldn't have warned you, let him reply, produced his replies and then you could have seen what the man's really like in private communications.
I suppose I'd better phone my lawyers to warn them. How sad.
I decided to post this in a technical blog because my current site is full of people clicking links to Don's sites because it's so difficult to avoid them on Google. If Don stops posting inaccurate information or at least apologises when he does so and stops attacking significant contributors to the community then I'll stop discussing this. Believe me, I'd *love* to stop discussing this because I have better things to do with my life.
Until that time, as Edmund Burke said ... ""All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." (It might sound a little melodramatic in this context, but stop to think about it.)
P.S. I'm very p*ssed off that I cluttered the technical blog with this. I'll need to make up for it at the weekend.
Posted by Doug Burns
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