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Re: Index management

From: Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 20:16:27 -0700
Message-ID: <1084072587.374768@yasure>


Roger S Gay wrote:

>>>By definition the order of rows in a relational table is random.
>>
>>Also absolutely true.
>>

>
> Howard, are you sure of this? Relational theorists please correct me if I am
> wrong, but I thought the best we could say about the order of rows is that
> it is indeterminate, which means we can't even make statistical arguments
> based on assumed randomness.

You are correct. The use of the word "random" is exactly what is the problem with much of this thread: It is imprecise. I know that both Mike and Howard know that what you said is correct. And both undoubtedly will respond with "that is what I meant." But it may well be that much of this dispute is the fact the words are being thrown around without the clarity that would be provided by the demos we are asking for.

Mike, for example, must be able to quickly and easily determine whether a clustering factor is altered by a rebuild. The fact that he continues to repeat his statement indicates to me that we likely have more sloppinless of language than sloppiness of code. Problem is we have yet to see that code.

> My only experience with this was with a third party vendor who slipped a
> weekly "rebuild every index in the system" job into a production system I
> was babysitting without saying a word to anyone (Grrrr!) So I can add a
> note here that index rebuilds of any real size are expensive in both CPU and
> log archive space as well as being almost always ineffective and pointless.

Which is a point to which I will agree and I suspect Howard will too. That it appears that Mike does not is what I would like to see resolved in this thread if we can just stick to Oracle and not personal insults.

> Thank you folks for an informative and so far entertaining thread. I, for
> one, promise faithfully never ever to rebuild an index (not that I ever
> would or did, mark you) without revisiting this thread and rereading every
> post in it.
>
> Roger S Gay

Let the entertainment continue.

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)
Received on Sat May 08 2004 - 22:16:27 CDT

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