an answer I require

[calimac]

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.

Comments

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Plus Sun has some software products that integrate well into the Oracle line.

I find this purchase ironic: I started out in technical editing in the US working for a company called Ashton-Tate that made the first PC relational database (dBASE). And now (if I'm lucky and keep my job) I'll be working for another database company!

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Ahaha. My most extensive programming experience was in dBASE and Clipper. I think I finally tossed my dBASE IV disks in around 2001.

My current job is technical writing, but I've never worked for a database company. I hope you keep your job (and I wish I had an editor).