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an answer I require
When I was a child, I would ask my mother questions about things I did not understand. Now, sometimes she asks me questions. Today, for instance, over lunch, she pointed to a newspaper article on Oracle's acquisition of Sun and said, "There's a question I've long wondered and have never gotten an answer to. What exactly is it that Oracle produces?"
Wow. That was a stumper. I chewed my sandwich and thought for a while. Then I realized there is one thing Oracle is known for producing. "A flamboyant CEO."
"Seriously," I added, "I think it's something to do with databases. I don't know exactly what it is that Sun produces either, except that whatever it is, they also produce a lot of technical documentation in support of it, since I know people whose job it is to write that."
Yeah, I know I could go look all this stuff up, though it wasn't so easy to do so over lunch, and there is nothing in this world so optimistic as a Wikipedia author's assumption of a lay readership's grasp of a technical subject.
Wow. That was a stumper. I chewed my sandwich and thought for a while. Then I realized there is one thing Oracle is known for producing. "A flamboyant CEO."
"Seriously," I added, "I think it's something to do with databases. I don't know exactly what it is that Sun produces either, except that whatever it is, they also produce a lot of technical documentation in support of it, since I know people whose job it is to write that."
Yeah, I know I could go look all this stuff up, though it wasn't so easy to do so over lunch, and there is nothing in this world so optimistic as a Wikipedia author's assumption of a lay readership's grasp of a technical subject.
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It's a little like not being able to name any compositions by Thomas Arne doesn't mean you've never heard of "Rule Britannia."
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