The client for my next coaching engagement will be using Oracle's Application Development Framework (ADF). I thought it would be a good idea to familiarize myself with some of the tools they'll be using, so I went to Oracle's website to download single-user versions of tools that are available at no charge. Oracle Express provides all the basic functionality of the Oracle RDBMS and ADF is a Java-based webapp framework tailored for Oracle back ends.
While I appreciate Oracle's willingness to make these tools available, I must say I was a bit surprised at the difficulty of obtaining them. The servers appear to be extremely slow. The Oracle Express download is a few hundred megabytes, and it took several hours. The ADF download is about 1.5 GB, and it ran more than 12 hours. Downloads of other software, videos, music, etc. from other sources have been considerably faster on the same (hotel) wireless connection and using the same laptop.
Before starting the lengthy download of Oracle Express, I first had to reach the link and click on it. Normally, clicking on a link is a relatively routine operation on the Internet. Not so on this occasion. The download page for Oracle Express for Linux reported an error refreshing the browser, and advised me to contact the site administrator. Interesting advice, as there appears to be no way to contact a site administrator.
Oracle's webapp is the only suspect that had opportunity...not quite sure about motive, though. Then again, it may be a failure of logic on my part: The business motive to provide poor customer service has never been intuitively obvious to me. I can but trust the good folks at Oracle have sound reasons for it. After spending some time searching the website for a contact link or for an alternative way to obtain the software, I gave up and did a Google search for "oracle express linux download."
Of course, the official download page was the first hit. Google offered a link to a cached version of the page. I tried that and, lo and behold! the page appeared with all links working. The software was in fact right where it was supposed to be and was available, but there was (still is?) something wrong with the website; you just can't get to the appropriate page through the front door. Thanks to Google's cache, a side window was open. I slid through and downloaded the Debian package for the Western character set.
One positive aspect of Oracle's service is that they provide documentation. The first documented step to install Oracle Express was to run the following command:
dpkg -i oracle-xe_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.debIt turned out this has to be done as superuser, so I tried
sudo dpkg -i oracle-xe_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.debThis time, I got
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)There is no mention of a 64-bit version on Oracle's site, nor any warning that the package they offer is for 32-bit systems.
What is worse than "useless?" "Misleading."
I guess I'll have to learn these tools using the client's time and equipment. The cynic in me wants to say that's part and parcel of their having chosen Oracle as a vendor. The professional in me doesn't like to say it, and wishes companies would simply provide what they claim to provide, whether free or not, or else not make the claim at all. The consultant in me says nothing about it for the moment, but has filed the experience for future reference when clients ask for advice about vendor selection.
Next: Installing Android development tools
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