I’m honored and humbled. Last month I received an email from Steven Feuerstein letting me know I was selected as a finalist in the Oracle Developers Choice Awards for my work in Database Security and outreach to the community. This in an of itself is a great honor. The folks who selected the finalist are people whom I have a great deal of respect for.
Everyone who made finalist is seriously good at what they do and I’m happy to call many of them friends. The first conference I spoke at was Harmony when Candy and I met Heli for the first time. My second time to Harmony, I took my mother so she could see Finland and Heli took it on herself to see that my mother enjoyed herself. Heli is a graceful and classy lady who is as sharp as they come.
Now part of me understands wanting “your candidate” to win. Heck, every time the Steelers play the Ravens I secretly hope the first string quarterback get knocked off the field. I get it; however this is a contest among ladies and gentlemen. Voting someone down so your candidate will win, well that’s just not cricket.
What amazes me about this community is some of the things you never hear, like “RTFM” (Read the fine manual) I’ve never hear, “you don’t know that, what are you stupid.” I’ve worked in shops where it was common to here these phrases. None of us are Tom Kyte (unless your Tom and you happen to be reading this.) so we don’t have encyclopedic knowledge and there are people in the DB Security and design arena who are much better then me. I ask them questions all the time when I can’t figure something out.
What do I hear a lot of from this community. “How can I help you?” “Don’t know the answer, lets figure it out.” “Well the answer is it depends.” This community got me away from using ROT, and uttering the phrase <EVIL EXPRESSION> Best Practice </EVIL EXPRESSION>. This community also gave me a passion for my work, along with many friends who I look forward to seeing at every conference. It is the community that gave me back my passion for my work and the community that keeps me striving to improve and continue helping. Thank you very much.
I want to take this opportunity to thank Jennifer Nicholson, Laura Ramsey and Steve Feuerstein along with everyone else for their hard work to put together the YesSQL event and the Oracle Developers Choice Awards. I also want to thank everyone who voted in the first Oracle Developers Choice Awards. These are your awards where you can recognize the people who have helped you.
Again thank you very much, I’m honored and humbled.