by As anybody who has read my column before, Oracle has gone out of their way to push my buttons. It really takes a lot to get me to come out *publicly* about a vendor, but Oracle, you do, oh you do…
1) Flash is *not* better. It just isn’t. What’s wrong with an HTML interface that I can quickly reference things from any old browser, even lynx if I need to, even a semi-smart phone! What was wrong with sunsolve? (ok, lots, but this is *not* better). The old HTML interface would come up quickly. Now I need to be on a high speed link to have any hope of this working. Flash gives me no needed functionality and a significant performance hit, which is very undesirable in an emergency over a relatively slow link (say Verizon Wireless from public transporation of some kind).
2) What was so wrong with docs.sun.com? I could actually find things. Do you know I had to search Google to find a procedure to download software for a 3510.. It was like 8 steps and totally non-intuitive. I’d be hard pressed to do it again without finding that procedure. This is *NOT* better!
3) When I search for docs about a particular Qlogic card that you support(ed), and I find the part number on the Qlogic website, and it points to you. it goes to your horrible documentation index. I mean, just horrible.. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/documentation/index.html
What kind of index is that? Why when I click on anything does it open yet another tab? and then another tab? And another? This is *NOT* better!
4) continuing on 3, ok, I can find the Sun part number of the card, and I can search for that. And so I find a document that says at the top: “This sheet contains an exported copy of basic metadata for each book that was moved from Docs.sun.com to download.oracle.com on Jan 14th”.. Except, it doesn’t tell you where, and there are only 2 links in your entire search results and they both say the same thing. You might as well say “we haven’t a farking clue, sorry”. Go ahead, search for 819-3323. Do you really find it acceptable that Google can search and index and find relevant documents better than you on your own site? Have you no sense of pride? This is *not* better.
Doubtless there will be a new installment of angst forthcoming. I’m hoping against hope that somebody from Oracle will eventually read these things and realize how phenomenally you screwed up so many aspects of this purchase and transition. Just leaving docs.sun.com and sunsolve as a deprecated, transitional service would have served you so much better. People would even cheer today if you brought them back. I’d send somebody chocolates.