Something to emulate

Tue 9 Dec 2003, 01:59 PM

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by Ben Langhinrichs
I read a lot of Domino weblogs, but I also follow a number of other weblogs of different sorts, include several Microsoft related weblogs.  One of those sites is Better Living Through Software, whose tagline is "Life at Microsoft, the software industry from a rational perspective".  The topic I wanted to mention is called TPC Arms Race Continues.  The post is about Oracle recently breaking a million tpmC on a single box, thus winning some sort of bragging rights in the on-line transaction processing world.  While this interests me very little directly, it is good to read a post which shows some good natured humility, with the author saying:

...Oracle also breaks a million, but gets nearly fifty percent more tpmC than SQL Server and at nearly a third the price per tpmC.  To our credit, the Oracle result comes two and a half years after the SQL Server result, but it's proof that Oracle is still in the game with Oracle 10g, and we need to hurry up and ship something new.

I sometimes think we all, from the IBMs and Microsofts down to the Genii Softwares, need to keep some perspective and show some humility.  There are a lot of bright people out there doing a lot of hard work to make software and hardware better and better, and while it may be tempting to worry about positioning and marketing and spin with regards to "our message", it doesn't hurt to give kudos to the "others".  I will certainly try to keep my eyes, and mind, open to their impressive feats, and not just our own.

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