Easy Oracle SQL: Get Started Fast Writing SQL Reports with SQL*Plus [Paperback]

John Garmany (Author), Don Burleson (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0972751378 | ISBN-13: 978-0972751377 | Publication Date: June 1, 2005

Targeted at Oracle professionals who need fast and accurate working examples of complex issues, Oracle In-focus books target specific areas of Oracle technology in a concise manner. Plenty of working code is provided without a lot of theory, allowing database managers to solve their problems quickly without reviewing data that they already know. All code scripts are available for instant download from a companion web site.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Garmany is a Senior Oracle DBA with Burleson Consulting. A graduate of West Point, an Airborne Ranger and a retired Lt. Colonel with 20+ years of IT experience. John is an OCP Certified Oracle DBA with a Master Degree in Information Systems, a Graduate Certificate in Software Engineering, and a BS degree (Electrical Engineering) from West Point. A respected Oracle expert and author, John serves as a writer for Oracle Internals, DBAZine and SearchOracle and SELECT Magazine. John is also the author of four bestselling Oracle books by Rampant TechPress, Oracle Press and CRC Press and hosts a popular Oracle Application Server Newsletter.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Rampant Techpress (June 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972751378
• ISBN-13: 978-0972751377
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #824,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Get started with a different book... not this one!, July 7, 2006

By 

J. Dupree (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Easy Oracle SQL: Get Started Fast Writing SQL Reports with SQL*Plus (Paperback)

For a beginner who is learning Databases, SQL and/or Oracle, this book is lacking.

I do agree that there are certain sections of text that are nicely done, explained, and illustrated. Unfortunately, they are wedged inbetween other sections where lots of confusing terminology and concepts are poorly explained. Normalization is squeezed into 5 pages. First experience getting signed onto SQLplus consumes several page or repetitive thoughts, but is not helpful in troubleshooting.

Get ready for the fire hose half way through Chapter 3 where the book covers varied types of table joins and subqueries without clearly explaining to the reader what's going on. It basically presents the syntax without explaining examples and situations where you'd want to use this feature. Table Joining is one of the most important concepts for report writers to master and the book fails to deliver.

Would have been better to delete Chapter 5 where the book takes a beginner through the rather advanced topics of differentiating between different types of indexes. bitmap versus b-tree versus function-based? If I'm just learning SQL, I'm not going to be making those design decisions quite yet. Use the extra pages here to better explain multi-table joins instead.

I also think they did a rush job getting this book out. Several of the chapter summaries just repeat, in a sentence form, the chapter's heading. The editing is horrible. The text is riddled with typos that will be confusing to the beginner. Example: Page 69 "test" should be "text" -- a significantly different semantic meaning for the sentence.

If you're a beginner, look for a different text. If you're an intermediate like me and need to brush up on what you already know, buy this book and see how many typos that YOU can find.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great jumpstart for SQL, September 18, 2005

By 

Charles Seale (Tuscaloosa, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Easy Oracle SQL: Get Started Fast Writing SQL Reports with SQL*Plus (Paperback)

To people that are new to SQL, John Garmany proves that SQL does NOT stand for Scary Query Language. It is an excellent step-by-step primer to take the uninitiated from clueless to competent. What I think is most impressive, is Mr. Garmany's ability to quickly take the student from creating very simple queries to very complex queries without causing the user severe mental and emotional stress. In fact, the examples included in the book, while challenging, are interesting, and even fun. There are lots of SQL books on the market, but this one doesn't require you to be the office geek to get a LOT out of it. Get this book, work through the examples, and pretty soon you to can impress your co-workers, as well as your boss. Highly recommended!

1 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice way to get started, July 15, 2005

By 

Donald Burleson (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Easy Oracle SQL: Get Started Fast Writing SQL Reports with SQL*Plus (Paperback)

As the editor for this book I appreciated the challenge of writing a book that takes a complicated subject and explains it in plain English.

Col. Garmany has done a good job with this task, and he strives to put himself into the mindset of the novice and explain Oracle SQL queries in easy-to-understand terms. The text has a sample database so that the reader can follow-along, and the queries start simple, with the more complicated SQL constructs such as sub queries being presented at the end of the text, after the basics are explained.

The real value of the book is the explanations of the SQL*Plus formatting commands for making reports with Oracle SQL. Garmany explains it is simple terms, and the reader seeds examples of the formatting commands and the corresponding output.