Package Dependencies

The thing that finally got me to start this blog was how I wasted pretty much all of last week (short week) attempting to get an Oracle product working. While I'm not going to go into all the details in this one post, I would like to touch on how impossible it is to even get started using Oracle products.

Most complex software packages come with a system of managing dependencies and internal modules. For instance, different flavors of Linux have a variety of managers/packagers (RPM, Yum, YaST, Deb, emerge, etc.) to help both the user keep up-to-date, and to help support figure out what is going on. Java, of course, comes with the venerable Jar, and Maven added widely used Maven Repository. Oracle seemingly has nothing. In order to do anything you need to download 600M+ of monolithic whatever and install in one big fat extravaganza. "Upgrading" takes on a similarly grandiose spectacle, usually involving a few DBAs and a weekend. Other then that, it is a seemingly never-ending parade of patches that have no relation to anything else in the system. No wonder anyone who thinks about Oracle too long needs an obnoxiously expensive support contact (that ends up doing nothing).

So what does this mean for the developer? Well first, managing development becomes difficult. Any developer would be insane to run the entire Application Server on their dev box. At least any developer who wants to get things done. Therefore, the Application Server goes on a shared development server, and tada.. we are back to timesharing the dev server like in the mainframe days. Well, not quite that bad. At least there is OC4J Standalone to "save" us. Which, btw, in very inconvenient times decides to behave differently from the full install for no reason. This is even further evidenced by the fact that most Oracle products don't install on Standalone, but need the full Application Server. How do our apps have a chance if even Oracle's don't.

It also means that I can't just download the product within the stack that I need and develop against it. In consuming a small API, which is promoted on the Oracle site like it is its own product, it must be extracted from a 600M+ download and then Installed just to get the jar files you need. This one took me almost a day. If I was allowed to have chosen wisely, I could have had the integration with that product done already instead of fiddling with an installer for a product that does not even need to be installed.