Customer Reviews

Oracle Database 10g: A Beginner's Guide (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have been a SQL Server DBA for years along with FoxPro, DB2, etc. But I still found this book very confusing.

Is it just me or did the examples not match anything in the Oracle 10g sample database that I loaded? Plus the EM did not even look the same. What's with that? Kind of hard to do the examples when nothing matches.

Worst beginners book I've ever read. If it wasn't for the fact that I was familiar with some of the concepts already, this book would have been totally useless.

If you are a true beginner, look for a different book. This one won't help.

I have been studying DB structure and SQL for years. I mainly purchased this book to learn more about the structure of Oracle's 10g product. This book is extremely poorly written and very confusing. The examples in the book are not correlated with the Oracle sample DB's included with the 10g platform. I found myself many times becoming confused about topics that I already have great knowledge about and have studied for years because the explanations in the book are very poorly done. I read 75% of the book then tossed it in the trash...

This is possibly the worst book in this category I've ever seen. I'm an experienced SQLServer DBA and thought this book would be fairly useful as a starting place for getting into Oracle. Its a total dud. It looks like the authors have picked a whole bunch of random bullet points out of the Oracle help files and thrown them together with a mild semblance of organisation. I would bet that a 'dummies' book would be better!!!!!!!!!

After reading both books, I must agree that this one has a lot of mistakes in it and can sometimes be a bit confusing. If you don't want to spend too much money but need a practical introduction then choose this book, if you plan on spending anyway, just buy 'Oracle 10g: the complete reference' straight away. It's better structured, everything used in examples is explained well. It's not a bad book but compared to the complete reference it's confusing. If you just installed oracle 10g on your computer, be sure to unlock the HR, OE, PM, IX, SH schemes if you want to be able to reproduce the exercises. (I found that nowhere referenced and it might be a bit confusing for a total newbie to find out)

The examples use very different tables. No table creation and table insertion procedures are in the downloadable sql examples. This makes the reconstruction of the examples almost impossible.

I am not a fan of the style in which this book is written. I find it distracting. There's something about the presentation of the information that annoys me. And what's up with all the .tif files? Am I supposed to have coincident online access to get the most out of this book?
Also, there are enough errors that I find them both annoying and sometimes simply confusing.
This book contains a strange hodgepodge of incomplete topics. To me it seems hastily conceived and I wouldn't recommend it.

The problem with this book is stated on page 4 " In order to work.... you will need to have the Oracle Database 10g software installed and the first database successfully created". Therein lies the problem. If you have the software installed and a database started you are way passed the beginning.

This is an intermediate and overview book of Oracle, it is not a beginner's book. When you install the software you will have at least 19 .exe files that will start certain portions of Oracle. Which one do you start with?? This book will not tell you. There are default passwords you need to know to get started with Oracle. This book will not tell you. There are certain set ups you need to do with the DBA program to start using Oracle. This book will not tell what you need to do.

There are chapters on SQL, Database Administrator, Networking, Backup, PL/SQL, Java, XML and Large Database Features. There is not a single chapter on how to begin and set up Oracle.

This book was written by three authors and five associate authors that are all highly qualified at Oracle. Their knowledge is so far above the beginner, they have no idea or concept of what the beginner needs to know. Nowhere is there a step by step, mouse click by mouse click, command by command on how to start Oracle. As stated before there are at least 19 .exe files installed when you install Oracle. There is no chapter that tells you what these 19 plus programs do and which one to start with or how to set up Oracle.

The book does give some code snippets to use once Oracle is up and running, but they are completely useless if you cannot get Oracle up and running. Instead of having chapters on Networking, Java, XML and Large Databases, there should be chapters on Beginning, Install, Setup, Logging on, and First Database Definition.

At its stated mission or title, this book is a complete, absolute and total failure. If you want a beginning book, pass on this one.

I just can't focus on a book when the writing is silly. I returned this book after reading half of the first chapter because I felt like I was trapped on the bus with a 'funny' computer guy.
Who knows, maybe this is a great book, but the voice I was getting as a reader in the author-reader transaction was too awkward, and I couldn't pay attention. I don't have this problem with O'Reilly books, and I have ordered one from them. We'll see.

Just like other reviewers have written, it is really a poor guide... from the fisrt pages you know that the book is missing it's target...

This book is a great reference document. It is great for a beginner with the use of Oracle and even holds value for people that are looking for a bit of a refresher. The books is well laid out, the check points are handy for training as well.