Certified SQL Expert

I saw a perfect position for me at my company. It seemed to be just the kind of PL/SQL developer position I have been searching for. There were a few problems though. One was that the location was on the other side of town. And the other was that they wanted a lot of different certifications.

I am an Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Associate. The main reason I got certified was that my company said they wanted people to get certified, and they were willing to pay. So I think I bought some training materials. Went in for an in person class. Then took and passed the test.

The certifications desired for my dream job were ones I had not heard of before. Maybe they are new. I really don't pay too much attention to certifications any more. I think it is time for that to change. So I have been studying the OCA Oracle Database SQL Certified Expert Exam Guide. Got an online copy. I am encouraged that I get most of the answers right at the end of each chapter.

There were a lot of basics that I did not have a strong grasp on. For instance I knew object names were capped at 30 characters. I found that limit the hard way. However I did not know objects need to start with a letter. Also did not know the only special characters allowed in the name are $, _, and #.

Speaking of names, there are objects that are grouped together in namespaces. That is, certain objects cannot have the same name in the same namespace. Here are those namespaces:

• user, role, public synonym
• table, view, sequence, private synonym
• index
• constraint

We have naming conventions that make sure these things don't cross paths even if they are in different namespaces. But it is good to know the exact rules, especially if you are going to be taking a certification test.