REST != !SOAP

OK, so we're heavy in recruitment time here at $DAYJOB, and I see lots of resumes that claim deep REST experience. However, when I probe candidates about building URIs, resources, using HTTP correctly, and so on, they are largely clueless. Probe a bit further and really all they've done is create some simple HTTP endpoint that takes query params or XML in the request body.

Now, there's nothing wrong at all with simple endpoints, andd they're damn useful. However, trying to pass it off as REST is another thing. Those folks just seem to think at "If it's not SOAP, I must be doing REST!".

Wrong. So very wrong. Reminds me of this blog I read recently, and it's associated reddit discussion.

SQLPlus options

So, for the truly geeky, you can "pass" in parameters to alter the default environment/behavior of sqlplus. The orafaq page helped me figure this out:

• create a login.sql file for all your commands
• add the directory to the $SQLPATH env variable (on most client machines, you'll need to create the env var)
• launch sqlplus, and you should have all your options setup

My current login.sql looks like this:

define _editor=emacs

set timing on

set serveroutput on

set colsep '|'

set linesize 120

Like I said, for the geeky, but damn handy when you don't want to muck with and IDE like TOAD.