Oracle PL/SQL Programming Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I recommend this book wholeheartedly for beginners as well as veterans of PL/SQL. Especially against the Oracle Press book by author Scott Urman. That book (though it covers the basics), it does not give you the tips and tricks or insight as does Steve's book.
The O'Reilly series book is well crafted, with excellent examples. The style of writing is humorous as well as straight forward. And it is a companion amongst other Oracle books by O'Reilly. O'Reilly Publishing seems to know Oracle better than Oracle Press knows itself.
Gio

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The first edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming quickly became anindispensable reference for both novice and experienced PL/SQLdevelopers. Packed with examples and recommendations, it helpedeveryone using PL/SQL (from the Oracle Forms developer to the databaseadministrator) make the most of this powerful language.

Oracle8 presents PL/SQL programmers with new challenges by increasing both the possibilities and complexities of the language.This newedition updates the original book for Oracle8, adding chapters describingthe new PL/SQL object features (object types, collections, object views, and external procedures). The second edition also contains a much-requestedchapter on tuning PL/SQL, as well as expanded discussions of debuggingand tracing PL/SQL execution.

The book comes with a companion diskette containing the Companion UtilitiesGuide for Oracle PL/SQL Programming, an online tool developed by RevealNet,Inc. The online guide contains more than 100 file of source code anddocumentation prepared by the authors.

Even if you've already read the first edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming,you'll find an enormous amount of new and revised information in thissecond edition and on its companion diskette. If you're new to PL/SQL,you'll soon find yourself on the road to mastery.

NOTE: To make room for the new material, some summaries and code from the first edition have been moved to the companion disk.

Oracle PL/SQL Programming is divided into seven parts:

Foreword Preface

Part I: Programming in PL/SQL
1. Introduction to PL/SQL2. PL/SQL Language Fundamentals3. Effective Coding Style
Part II: PL/SQL Language Elements 4. Variables and Program Data5. Conditional and Sequential Control6. Database Interaction and Cursors7. Loops8. Exception Handlers9. Records in PL/SQL10.PL/SQL Tables Part III: Built-in Functions and Packages 11. Character Functions12. Date Functions13. Numeric, LOB, and Miscellaneous Functions14. Conversion Functions
Part IV: Modular Code 15. Procedures and Functions16. Packages17. Calling Stored PL/SQL Functions from SQL
Part V: PL/SQL Oracle8 Features 18. Object Types19. Nested Tables and VARRAYs20. Object Views21. External Procedures
Part VI: Making PL/SQL Programs Work 22. Code Design Tips23. Managing Code in the Database24. Debugging PL/SQL25. Tracing PL/SQL26. Tuning PL/SQL
Part VII: Appendixes A. What's on the Companion Disk?B. Calling Stored Procedures from PL/SQL Version 1.1C. Built-in Packages

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Oracle Database 10g PL/SQL Programming Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The book is a large survey of the PL/SQL language and introduces many new things that have changed with 10g. But there is a major problem with the book, which runs throughout almost all Oracle Documentation.
The book is written more as a corporate training manual than that of a programming text book. As probably everyone who ever took a training class from their company knows, training is often done by people who not only are not educators, but may not actually understand or have even used the subject of the training. It is intentional that such people do not state the concepts abstractly - they only know concrete examples and maybe only the example in their pre-written material.
This book fits this description to a T. It does not specify the correct syntax except in examples. It does not specify the qualifications and conditions governing the language elements or the examples. As such, unless you are essentially copying an example almost verbatim, you have no real knowledge of whether your code will compile, let alone work as intended. As an example consider their discussion of SELECT statements. They speak about the Select clause, the INTO clause, etc. Nowhere do they state that the list of items in the INTO clause should separated by commas. Although most people could correctly guess that the comma is the separator, you need to find an example to show you that. The book is rampant with omissions like this. Two pages later, they use an OPEN - FOR construct in an example without introducing it. That it can be used dynamically, i.e. with the query in a character string constructed at run time, is not only not mentioned in this section, but is not even mentioned in the chapter on Dynamic SQL.
This should be looked upon as a book of (simple) examples. It should be no one's text or reference.

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Create dynamic client/server applications using PL/SQL and the comprehensive information contained in this authoritative volume. Expert Oracle insiders cover the features of PL/SQL, explain scripting semantics and syntax, and fully detail the PL/SQL functionality of Oracle Database 10g. You'll learn how to write powerful PL/SQL programs, interact with Oracle databases, perform complex calculations, and handle error conditions.

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Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Covers Versions Through Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (Animal Guide) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)There are always 2-3 books every developer has in their area of expertise and if you're using PL/SQL, the Feuerstein book is one of them.
I'm not sure how much someone can get out of it if they never did work coding before and you're trying to learn it but I can think of many many times I needed an example for a specific problem and the book had a great example of how to do it.
Also I warn people to be careful because especially for the later chapters, they evolve to the answer to the problem and the cognitive method for this book is to follow along to the end to see how it got there - I think to some of the reviewers this is verbose but this really sinks the PL/SQL concept into your brain effectively and in my experience it's clearly worthwhile. I'm amazed (as always) how clear the evolution is if you take the time to follow it.
I might also add if you're not doing PL/SQL for work but trying to learn it, the evolution might not make sense it's very obvious to me the author has hard core real experience to approach the topics the way he does it.
For people in the field, I'd even say if you're a brand new developer on a job or programmed in something else and are approaching PL/SQL for the first time, the examples are more than clear enough and the opening chapters cover relatively universal and simple concepts so I believe the book is extremely beneficial for beginners as well as very advanced PL/SQL developers.

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This book is the definitive reference on PL/SQL, considered throughout the database community to be the best Oracle programming book available. Like its predecessors, this fifth edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming covers language fundamentals, advanced coding techniques, and best practices for using Oracle's powerful procedural language. Thoroughly updated for Oracle Database 11g Release 2, this edition reveals new PL/SQL features and provides extensive code samples, ranging from simple examples to complex and complete applications, in the book and on the companion website. This indispensable reference for both novices and experienced Oracle programmers will help you:



Get PL/SQL programs up and running quickly, with clear instructions for executing, tracing, testing, debugging, and managing PL/SQL code
Optimize PL/SQL performance with the aid of a brand-new chapter in the fifth edition
Explore datatypes, conditional and sequential control statements, loops, exception handling, security features, globalization and localization issues, and the PL/SQL architecture
Understand and use new Oracle Database 11g features, including the edition-based redefinition capability, the function result cache, the new CONTINUE statement, fine-grained dependency tracking, sequences in PL/SQL expressions, supertype invocation from subtypes, and enhancements to native compilation, triggers, and dynamic SQL
Use new Oracle Database 11g tools and techniques such as PL/Scope, the PL/SQL hierarchical profiler, and the SecureFiles technology for large objects
Build modular PL/SQL applications using procedures, functions, triggers, and packages

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