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Closed 9 years ago.
We're a .NET team which uses the Oracle DB for a lot of reasons that I won't get into. But deployment has been a bitch. We are manually keeping track of all the changes to the schema in each version, by keeping a record of all the scripts that we run during development.
Now, if a developer forgets to check-in his script to the source control after he ran it - which is not that rare - at the end of the iteration we get a great big headache.
I hear that SQL Compare by Red-Gate might solve these kind of issues, but it only has SQL Server support. Anybody knows of a similar tool for Oracle? I've been unable to find one.
Red Gate Schema Compare for Oracle has now been released!
http://www.red-gate.com/products/schema_compare_for_oracle/index.htm
There is a 28-day fully functional free trial. Please give it a go and let us know your feedback!
TOAD is a great generic tool for Oracle development and i think a similar feature is in the basic version. You can download a trial version (make sure you don't get the old free version of TOAD, that is about 4 years old)
If you don't want to buy a tool, and you need something less flash you could roll your own quite easily. I just found Schema Compare Tool for Oracle which looks very simple, and has a nice baseline concept. This is very handy if you want to track changes since the last code check-in. This way you discover changes that may have been made to multiple DBs by hand, but not documented.
PS: The "SQL Compare by Red-Gate" demo looked very nice indeed... however the voice over cracked me up... sounded like a BBC documentary.
OraPowerTools will do the job.
There is also a "Diff Wizard" in Oracle SQL Developer, but I haven't used it yet.
Hitchhiker,
If you're willing to spend some money, TOAD has "compare schemas" functionality which should do what you're after. It'll report the differences and produce a migration script to bring one into line with the other.
I've never used the script, so I can't vouch for it, but I have used it to make sure our build scripts are complete.
Mark - I would like to be able to easily synchronize two database schemas. Specifically, this demo looks like heaven to me.
Check out Oracle Enterprise Manager Change Management Pack, its an Oracle tool for this:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oem/pdf/ds_change_pack.pdf
You can try it there:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/oem/index.html
There are various tools out there that you can use, I haven't used any of them myself though so I've got no comments to make about them, but another "trick" that you can use is to create a trigger on DDL events, so you can basically capture (to a table, or log file or whatver) any changes done between deployments.
DDL Triggers
Related
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Closed 10 years ago.
We have a PHP/Symfony web application which we use to kick start some procedures on the Oracle DB manually. Sometimes parameters are passed to the procedures: either as a free text box or by drop down which is filled dynamically (eg. SELECT DISTINCT name FROM mytable). Before the webapp did more and was more complex, but now it's really only about start procedures manually. (well, there is also user and rights management: eg. User A can only start procedure A and User B only procedure B).
Now the question is if this solution is still a good option or if it would be better to switch to a solution using Oracle APEX directly on the Oracle server.
So here I've got some questions
Does anybody know APEX and used it before? Comments? What do you
think of it?
Is is basically suited for such a task? What would
we have to think of as well? What is all needed?
If yes, how much effort would be needed
for such a solution (max. 20 User, max. 20 procedures in in 6
categories)?
What about maintenance?
You phrased it open en in that regard i agree with #Ben.
However, what you seem to be looking for looks like it could be very easily implementend in Apex. Form pages created on procedures will automatically generate the required page items and a process calling the procedure.
If you have packages, you can easily mimick that behaviour as you can just create the required page items, and a process that passes those values to a packaged procedure or function.
What you'd need is an apex installation on your database, and a listener (the embedded plsql gateway, the standalone apex listener, or some other http server).
The effort required wouldn't be much. Creating pages and items is not all that hard, and can be done in a declarative way. If all you know is PLSQL, you could still find your way in apex without having to worry to hard about html and/or javascript at first.
If all you need (at least, right now) are some forms which call procedures/packages, the only maintenance you should do is to adjust page items and processes as you alter procedure calls in the database.
If you're really interested, simply go to apex.oracle.com and request a workspace. Take the 2-day developer guide found under the documentation. This will give you at least some idea of the how and what, and you'll see some of what apex has to offer. In your requested workspace will also be a demo application (products) which you can look into, packaged demo applications,... You have access to an own schema too, which can be accessed through the sql browser. Create a procedure! Then create a new application/page, and base it on the procedure: see if you like what you see.
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Closed 9 years ago.
I'm a developer and need to collaborate with an UI designer and a project manager. so there are a lot of documents we need to share and the project manager will assign me tasks about the project. Instead of email and dropbox, what's the best way to do it?
You could look at varying other online collaboration tools out there. I use Clinked (http://clinked.com/) at work, and although we use a the paid version there is a free one for 5 users or less so maybe you could check that out?
My team and I have been using Wrike for almost a year now, and I have to say it’s pretty neat in terms of collaboration. We have to deal with lots of documentation and edit-approve iterations, and Wrike made it all really simple. Basically, each member of the team just opens a needed doc, edits it, saves, and it’s automatically uploaded as a new version, so no download and no multiple versions of the same doc. And every time there’s been a change it sends a notification to my e-mail, so it’s really easy to keep track on what’s going on with a task. It’s also integrated with Google docs, so you can choose whatever suits your needs better. I, personally, love its e-mail integration (it converts my e-mails into tasks, I just need to add Wrike into the e-mail’s CC and it will be transferred into the app) and Outlook add-in, as it helps to keep all our data in one place. It works perfectly for our task management needs, too. Especially with its Activity Stream that makes it really easy to stay updated with the tasks’ changes and discuss any coming issue.
Hope you’ll find it useful too! Let me know how it went afterwards.
You might find this list of 43 project management software alternatives useful:
http://blog.timedoctor.com/2011/02/02/43-project-management-software-alternatives
My personal favorites are Basecamp, Time Doctor and Dropbox. These programs have helped my team in a lot of ways especially productivity. I'm sure you'll find yours there too. It's the most helpful and comprehensive list I was able to get.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I cant stand oracle reports builder. Its constantly crashing and sucking in general. Copying and pasting stuff only sometimes works. Elements visualy look selected after you unselect them. AARRRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I need another tool. Are their any alternatives for designing the report jsps?
This is an old thread but here my take on it. For experienced developers (I should point out that I am one), Oracle Reports is unbelievably productive tool. For new developers, it can be baffling and frustrating. I have been in the "market" for an Oracle Reports alternative for some time now and have yet to find a tool that can do what Oracle Reports can do for me. The tools I have looked at:
Oracle BI Publisher: Officially, this is the successor to Oracle Reports. One day it will be as good as Oracle Reports...right now it primarily uses MS Word as the report designer. Its not fun to to wrestle with Word (nested) tables (which replaces frames). I would prefer Reports Frames any day.
Pentaho: I looked at this with minor interest, it's commercial open source and I thought did a pretty good job. Not sure how it scales and like all open source projects, is at the mercy of an active community.
MicroStrategy: This is again a very seasoned product. BI is their bread and butter and so I would expect that its pretty good. I had a vendor do a POC and they replicated one of my most complex "Form" type reports (a business document, bill-of-lading). The price however it at enterprise level (read: very pricy). Although for departmental deployments they have a 'free' version.
Microsoft Reporting: This one has good promise but it is sold primarily with MS SQL Server and I being an Oracle-guy has felt internal resistance to this tool. One of these days I will overcome it when the Reports Builder has crashed one too many times.
There are scores of others like JasperReports, Actuate, Business Objects (Crystal), Information Builders etc.
Don't bother switching tools, you'll probably only be disappointed. I've used many reporting tools and all of them have significant issues. No matter which tool you use you'll probably end up fighting it and gradually move more and more of your logic into the database. The more SQL tricks you learn the less you'll have to rely on poorly designed reporting tools.
Microstrategy or Business Objects.
You may develop a custom software as erbsock has told, like a lightweight BO, create views from the selected fields by users, name them as reports and schedule a job to send them as a CSV file or in a jsp file , whatever the view part is.
Also in Oracle Reports Builder, if you are not mentioning the old 6i interfaced tool, try to build one big query and try to build the XML using the publisher. I am outdated about it , but remember something like that.
I will ask about it to an expert friend of mine.
Best Regards,
Kayhan YÜKSEL
Use SQL and understand your data model and plug it into an excel spreadsheet using ODBC?
After using the tool for a year, we are familiar than past. We still have challenges that implementations worked fine in TOAD, but the code does not work in Oracle Report.
After crashing several time, we have done CTR+S before run the project. Plus, we save every hours as a previous draft.
It help us to lost our works but we need more space for them.
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Closed 10 years ago.
Given I'm:
a solo developer using VS2008 Professional
looking for Microsoft-produced source control (I'm aware there are alternatives)
looking to get away from Visual SourceSafe 2005
Is it correct that my only option is to drop ~$8k on Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition ($5,469) + Team Foundation Server ($2,799) - in order to get the TFS version control component?
Reading the answers to other related questions it looks like routes to bringing the TFS price down is to either become a Microsoft Gold Certified partner or to take advantage of the ISV Empower program. I'd welcome any comments related to these options.
The top non-Microsoft solution looks to be Subversion + VisualSVN, but I'd really like to go the all-Microsoft route if I can possibly swing it.
The reason that I'd like to go all-Microsoft is that it's my preference to first try the stock solution, and then later try the alternatives with the benefit of that experience. Also, I've had the rare positive experience with SourceSafe. Or, maybe I'm just a closet MS fanboy. :-)
Also, does the picture change at all when VS2010 comes out?
Thanks!
P.S. I'm downloading VisualSVN now to give that a shot since there's no reason not to.
If you qualify for BizSpark, that comes with TFS.
Given you are an independent developer, and although I fully understand you wish to go the full-on Microsoft route, I can't stress highly enough that using one over the other won't mean as much to you at this point.
When I started using Source Control, I used VSS... much like many others on this site. After about 4 months, I quickly realized that there were many issues with it (namely, that it corrupted every 10 days or so, and that it caused my machine to lag horribly.)
I switched over to SVN and I do have to admit, I'm quite happy with the outcome. When you build your devleopment team to 2,3,4,5... then look into the expense. You'll find that you can get the same affect of Team Suite if you integrate SVN with something like fogbugz, or look at something like CodeSpaces
If you are a solo developer you might not need to go the TFS way. As the product name suggests it is for teams. I suggest take a dive into source control systems like Subversion + TortoiseSVN or Mercurial + TortoiseHg. You could even use a web based source control if it fits your needs, sometime like Launchpad.net
If you would say why you are so hip on getting it from Microsoft, we might better be able to help you?
Give SVN a try. Look at TortoiseSVN, AnkhSVN, and Visual SVN.
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Closed 9 years ago.
Background: I'm a windows developer at MegaCorp(tm) and I am getting new hardware soon.
Question: Are there best practices around setting up my developer software installs?
Details: I've got my main IDE (Visual Studio/SQL Management Studio), but there are also tools that I'm testing out, additional tools I can't live without, and future accomodations.
All my code is stored on a remote server in SourceSafe so I don't need to really accommodate for that, but I'll regularly jump into perl/python/php for separate/side tasks.
The only advice I can give you is set up your machine in a way you need it and you can work with and then save an image so that you can return to that state easily.
Also, don't forget to go and get all your SysInternals goodies. Oh, also remember to export your rss feeds before you upgrade.
You should also install the Windows SDK (which usually doesn't come with VS), as there are many useful tools there that can help during development.
If you plan to use .NET, look into Reflector and LINQPad.
If you plan to use ASP.NET or do any web development at all, look into Fiddler and Firebug
Use a VM image, then the project has a VM image that is version controlled.
Tools and OS are recoverable years later.
Your name will shine on asa voice of sanity and configuration management.
Get rid of SourceSafe
Seriously, don't store anything in SourceSafe. There are many other, better Version Management Systems out there. What's wrong with SourceSafe? I strongly urge you to consider reading the following posts:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000660.html
http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/windev/sourcesafe.html
http://www.developsense.com/testing/VSSDefects.html
Especially the last one - it goes into lots of detail about the problems with VisualSourceSafe. What should you use instead? Wikipedia has a great comparison of many different Version Management Systems for you to compare. You can look here to find out which ones integrate nicely with Visual Studio.
vim - VI Improved
Beyond Compare - best diff tool.
If you use multiple machines (like
one for dev one for test)
Synergy is invaluable.
If you occasionally need to edit
icons Paint.NET is pretty good.
As everyone else says kill source safe.
I have to agree regarding SourceSafe, whether or not you have the ability to opt-out of using it or not will obviously affect your ability to addopt a new SCM tool but if you can I highly recommenf the free VisualSVN Server for managing subversion and / or hosting repositories.
If you are prepared to pay for the licence you can also buy the VisualSVN plugin for visual studio, as a student I can't afford that but I have used AnkhSVN which integrates with VS through the source control provider APIs providing a nice native looking interface in VS 08
Other tools I can't live without:
TestDriven.NET
DocProject for easy generation of MSDN-style code documentation. I believe it uses sandcastle to do the real work but sandcastle itself is difficult to use and this is the most sane UI over it I've seen and managed to get working without massive amounts of work.
Paint.NET for graphics work
TortoiseSVN is another really good SVN client that I use for doing things like merging to trunk because I am more familiar with the interface and I think it's nicer than AnkhSVN in some areas