Day-O

Author:

May 2008

The Dayton Oracle Special Interest Group, or DAY-O, is a newly formed local organization for users of the Oracle database and related Oracle products.  

Oracle is complex and ever-changing software, and developers and DBAs who work with it must educate themselves continually to keep pace.  One of the best ways to get this education is through user-driven organizations.  These volunteer-driven user groups offer responsiveness to user needs, real-world experience, ongoing networking relationships, and low cost

Columbus and Cincinnati both contain excellent Oracle user groups – the Ohio Oracle User Group (OOUG) and Greater Cincinnati Oracle User Group (GCOUG), respectively.  Both these groups hold quarterly, daylong meetings and frequently feature nationally-known speakers.  DAY-O was formed to supply Oracle users in Dayton with a complementary option.  DAY-O meetings are held monthly in the evenings and can provide more frequent, digestible doses of Oracle education than daylong road trips.

DAY-O content is drawn from the group members themselves.  For example, the April 14 meeting features a presentation by Mark Wyatt, a group member and recognized expert on Oracle’s APEX rapid web development framework.  Other meetings are organized as in laboratory style as hands-on workshops, with members bringing laptops and trying out new techniques personally, getting guidance and troubleshooting from each other in real time.  Future laboratory sessions may include topics such as PL/SQL collections,  Oracle Text, BLOBs, Oracle Data Guard, table compression, Java stored procedures, XML in the database, pivot tables… virtually any Oracle-related subject.

DAY-O is organized as a Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Dayton Microcomputer Association (DMA), which .  It is similarly associated with the OOUG as a SIG.  DAY-O members need not belong to either organization, although they are encouraged to.

DAY-O meetings are free of charge.  They are held the second Monday of every month, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm at Mary-Ann’s Kitchen at 33 N. Ludlow St., downtown.  Many members enjoy a drink, snack or meal during the meeting.

The group’s website is at http://dayo.pbwiki.com.  Anyone with an interest in Oracle products is welcome to join; a mix of experience levels makes a good teaching and learning environment.   E-mail catherine.devlin@gmail com for more details.