Forum OpenACS Improvement Proposals (TIPs): Re: TIP 65: (proposed) Modify APM to recompile busted Oracle PACKAGE and PACKAGE BODY objects after upgrade

I vaguely remembered something about automatic recompilation (and probable performance hits for the first access). See here:

Oracle automatically records dependencies among objects to alleviate the complex job of dependency management for the database administrator and users. For example, if you alter a table on which several stored procedures depend, Oracle automatically recompiles the dependent procedures the next time the procedures are referenced (executed or compiled against).

But nevermind, it probably says somewhere what the rules for recompilation on the fly are and how intricate it can get.