Customer Reviews

Expert One on One Oracle

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book belongs on every developer, team leader, or DBAs desk that works with Oracle. Kyte has written a masterpiece in advanced Oracle knowledge. He does three things very well in this book: tells you what is important in Oracle, why it is important, and what happens if you do things the wrong way.

Kyte starts out giving the foundations for Oracle databases, the architecture, locking schemes, and table and index considerations. He gives a good treatment of the types of tables and indexes that Oracle offers including the appropriate times to use them and the trade-offs to weigh.

Another key topic that he covers is redo and rollback. These features are handled in a unique way in Oracle, and a lack of understanding can lead to inefficient and incorrect databases and applications.

Armed with the foundations, Kyte then takes the reader through performance tuning and optimizing databases. The best advice in this section is that performance cannot be thrown in at the end. The design decisions for a database will determine how it performs and scales. As he says, "There is no fast=true setting in the init parameters."

Then the book tackles some more advanced features, such as autonomous transactions, dynamic sql, and C and Java extensions for stored procedures. Kyte again gives good advice for when these are appropriate over standard PL/SQL stored procedures.

The size of the book can be intimidating at first glance, but it is pleasant to read. Kyte uses a conversational style rather than a lecturing delivery. This book has a lot to offer, and you won't find yourself tired after reading it.

I've been developing Oracle applications for many years and have never found a book more resourceful than Tom's. It is packed full of valuable information and is a must have for anyone working with Oracle. It covers many aspects application development from a variety of languages including C, PL/SQL and Java. Most Oracle books are strictly for reference, this book makes for good reference but also is great reading and covers interesting concepts. Chapter 1 in this book is called "Developing Successful Oracle Applications" and is a must read. I recently found that my long running query was not properly using the index I created. I looked in Tom's book and found the answer to my problem under a section called "Why isn't my Index Getting Used?" What more could you ask for? If you're a beginner, intermediate or advanced programmer, or DBA this book is for you.

This book attempts to cover dozens of subjects, and as such is 1,300 pages in length! Each subject contains gems of insight that had escaped me for some years now. I very much recommend this book if you are going to do any PL/Sql or Java coding. Read a chapter a day and really think about what Tom is saying. If you are really going to write industrial-strength code then you need this book, as Oracle Documentation and Oracle-Press books (I own several) tend to be quite shallow and omit explanations that Tom includes.

If there is a downside, it is that only a few pages are dedicated to any one subject, meaning that while there are many gems, this is not a book to learn the basics from and it does not cover any one subject completely. But then again, I have not seen an Oracle book that does. I wish Tom would write an entire series of books of this quality; I would buy it in a heart-beat!

P.S. Make sure that you get the 2003 version of this book from "APress", as I purchased one from the "New and Used" and got stuck with the 2001 version from "Oracle Press". Apparently Amazon does not require such disclosure.

If you are an Oracle programmer, or a DBA that works with programmers (and has to tell them all the things that they are supposed to know), this the best book you can buy. There are books by people that can program, and books by writers who can write but don't quite understand what they are writing about and there are a million other faults a book could have, but this book has none of them. Tom Kyte is at the very top of Oracle programming and he is a teacher who wants you to be able the do the same thing. Every topic in this book "reaches the ground". Tom starts from setting up your environment, and takes you through many high level exercises, showing you how to make it work, every single step of the way. He is teacher like W. Richard Stevens and Steve Rago.

There is too much to describe it all but as an example, there is a 70 page section on writing a C-Based external procedure. It starts with six pages of setting up your environment (listener, schema, server, exproc program, libraries), then the code in PL/SQL and C, how to make it, how to install it, how to test it, and ends with the answer to every error message you might get if you make a mistake.

The applications discussed are not just "interesting" and they don't just "work". There is a recurring theme in all of the applications and that is this: they scale. Tom has sections on bind variable, and then more on bind variables, and then more on bind variables, until the idea is branded on you that a "working" application is trivial unless it scales. You aren't writing code for developers, but for end users who may do millions of transactions a day; that is the kind of code you want.

If you already know everything, you will learn more, but either way Tom's projects are complete, and well documented; you can learn this.

This is great book, you will read all 1200 pages.

As I mention in the title, I rate this book from a developer's perspective not a DBA's: My Oracle experience is usually Java/J2EE/JDBC and little PL/SQL programming.

When I first saw this book, I thought it to be a DBA reference book. Then I started picking up chapters and reading: I was amazed with the quality of information and suprised how blindly I before was working with the Oracle database. Why my query was so slow? why my index didn't help? Why transaction isolation level was so critical? and so on. I found answers to my questions in this book.

In this book, Tom explains internals of Oracle database, detailing and emphasizing critical points, and helping us to understand how we can use the Oracle database correctly and efficiently. Topics range from DBA topics like configuration, data loading, partioning to those which programmers can benefit as well: Optimization, indexes, transactions, tables etc.

This book is not a book about SQL, database design or database theory. It's all about getting the best out of an Oracle database. I strongly recommend it to any programmer developing software interacting with an Oracle database. SQL, general database knowledge, and basic Oracle knowledge is almost mandatory for reading (One should know what trigger, view, transaction, schema, index etc. are before starting the book).

With this book, "Expert One on One" series of Wrox seems to make a very good start.

Tom Kyte offers up a world of expertise on the many aspects of an Oracle database. The content of the book is drawn from years of real-world scenarios he has encountered. He offers up a problem, then rolls up his sleeves and gets to solving it - the right way! I guarantee that you will find problems of your own, mirrored almost to a tee, in this book.

At times he will talk over your head - so make sure that you have a good understanding of SQL, PL/SQL and some other language like C or Java. Otherwise, you will get lost quickly. This book is not for greenhorns.

Bottom line here: Tom knows his theory, but unlike so many other authors, he isn't so concerned about discussing theory, as he is concerned about how that theory applies to solving real-world problems. So, he not only understands the toolkit, but how to use the tools wisely.

Do yourself and your organization a favor and get this book! Check out asktom.com to get a sense of his straight-forward style.

If you work with an Oracle database in any capacity, this book is for you. Here's why:

1. Clear and concise writing style. His writing style never gets in the way of the information he's trying to impart.

2. Wealth of knowledge. I cannot put enough emphasis on how much *good* information is in this book. Tom combines clear explanations with informative examples that really drive each of his points home.

3. Written for the real world. This isn't a book written about how Oracle should work or works in the disjointed world of Oracle's PR department. It's written to reflect how it works in thousands of IT shops both small and large around the world. When breaking down a particular technology or concept he explains how it works, the circumstances in which it is most effective and, just as importantly, the circumstances in which it doesn't do so well.

In short, buy this book. It's worth every penny.

This is a very important book for Oracle developers. It develops the thesis that database applications should seek to exploit the chosen database's strengths rather than attempting to be database independent. The author has a very clear understanding of Oracle's strengths and he explains them in a way that will inspire and motivate you to make the most of them. You'll never want to touch a different database again!

The author also tells many cautionary tales about the perils of ignorance. There are many things about the Oracle database that you do not need to know, but there are some that are vital to your success as an Oracle developer. This book tells you what is important, and seldom bores you with what is not. If you read this book and take it to heart, you will avoid many pitfalls that could otherwise make your project fail.

I'm an Oracle DBA with 13 years experience, beginning with version 5 of the database (remember those MS-DOS floppies?).

About Tom Kyte: Tom is an acknowledged expert in the field; he is Vice President of the Core Technologies Group at Oracle. His web site is a terrific alternative source of information about Oracle. He also publishes the "Ask Tom" column in Oracle Magazine.

Tom Kyte's book is simply awesome. Every time I read another chunk of it, I learn something new. His depth and breadth of understanding is amazing. (If you think you are an Oracle expert, buy the book. You'll be amazed at how much more Tom can teach you.) His troubleshooting is really good too. He seems to know all of the places where people encounter problems with specific features, and includes great troubleshooting information where appropriate.

If you're hesitant to buy the book because it doesn't have "9i" stamped on it, buy it anyway! Believe me, you won't regret it! Remember: 9i is a superset of 8i, and a good understanding of 8i functionality will help you understand most of 9i too.

I also had the privilege of meeting Tom in person, during an Oracle 9iR2 presentation. He is a very generous with his time, but also perpetually busy answering questions on his web site (he was connected with a laptop and cell phone before he started the presentation). I asked him about the time it took to write the book, and he acknowledged that it took a major chunk out of his life. Be thankful that there is a person as knowledgable as Tom who is so willing to help the rest of us get up to speed!!

Along with Jonathan Lewis, Tom Kyte is that rare individual a true technical expert who can communicate clearly and effectively. This shows in the regular answers available on his Ask Tom website and is the hallmark of this book.

This is the first book I have seen that looks clearly and concisely at effective Oracle development. Tom's discussion for example of the use of bind variables is both entertaining and informative. Similarly the comparative discussion of locking mechanisms and the impact that differing implemetations of this have on effective coding is essential reading for all of those developers tempted down the 'one approach suits all databases' road. All of this detailed technical knowledge is explained and illustrated with examples that you can easily run yourself to verify the impact that effective coding could have on your own applications.

Just as Jonathan Lewis' book should really be made available to all the DBAs in your organisation, so too should this book be on the developers bookshelf (or better yet desks).