Don?t
you hate it when there are many meanings for the same word?
For example, Oracle?s Virtual Private Database feature is also known
as Row-level security, fine-grained access control, VPD, RLS and
FGAC.
I also
wonder why computer terms are so morbid. Programs are
executed, tasks are killed and routines are aborted when they
deadlock.
We see
the same issue with computer terms, many of which have been borrowed
from American vernacular. The other day I was wearing my
favorite t-shirt with the phrase ?Got Root?? on it, and a farmer
came up and asked ?What kinda root y?all talking about thar??
Let?s take a look at some of these innocuous computer words with
double-meanings.
Fetch
American ? ?Go fetch me that thar possum?.
Oracle ? In PL/SQL you can fetch a row from a cursor within a
loop.
Heap
American - ?You in a heap ?o trouble, boy?.
Oracle ? The RAM heap for the PGA contains frames for sorting.
Pointer
American - ?That pointer is one ?o my best huntin dawgs?
Oracle ? The segment header block contains a pointer to the high
water mark.
EBCDIC
American ? Hey, I hear that Joe?s got EBCDIC
Oracle ? Oracle on MVS/ESA supports the EBCDIC character set
Broadcast
American ? I?m going to broadcast these corn seeds
Oracle ? The TNS layer can be used for
network broadcast messages
Bind
American ? Man, that cheese will shore bind you up
Oracle ? You should always use a bind variable with
procedures
Bootstrap
American ? He?s pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.
Oracle ? The oratab file can bootstrap an
instance.
Root
American ? That sassafras root makes a great potus.
Oracle ? UNIX installs require root access.
Flush
American ? Go flush out that raccoon.
Oracle ? Oracle will flush the buffer cache
on shutdown.
Spool
American ? Run fetch that spool of cable.
Oracle ? Oracle can spool output to a file.
Stale
American ? That stale cheese will make great bait.
Oracle ? Pointers can become stale when nested table rows
are relocated.
Stack
American ? Go stack up that hay.
Oracle ? Oracle keeps serialization information in the
stack.
Watchdog
American ? He?s a great watchdog but don?t let him grab onto
your leg.
Oracle ? The PMON process has a watchdog timer
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