Customer Reviews

Oracle: The Complete Reference, Electronic Edition

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

 

 

I was looking for a book I could use as an occasional reference when trying to write ad hoc queries and/or manage several databases as a Business Systems Administrator. This is the one. I now use it as a training tool for the staff I supervise.

I am not a DBA, per se, but an experienced business user who needs to be more than an observer. I actually got more from the book than I did from the instructor lead training(ILT) that cost $2,500 in tutution and 5 days of lost time as a consultant.

I would recommend it. However, it is not a cook book. You must come to it with a good understanding of relational databases, design, and an idea of what you want from your system.

I have taught Intermediate Oracle & Relational Database Development using this book & find it quite detailed as a complete reference should be. While the later part of the book is literally an indespensible reference & the appendices offer a great deals about optimization, the book itself provides for very good coverage of the Oracle & SQL DDL & DML basics in addition to SQL*Plus coverage I have not found anywhere else. The end of part two, detailing triggers, procedures & snapshots is particuarly useful. A must have for every RDD & SQL developer, user & proponent out there!

This book starts with a tutorial section that doesn't assume any Oracle knowledge, the 2nd half is reference. The online version on the CD is fairly clumsy in it's search capabilities.

The only thing "complete" about this book is how completely confused you will be if you expect to use this as a tutorial or reference and you have less than 5+ years of working experience with Oracle systems. The book reeks of being written by programmers who make bold assumptions as to what a person knows, often leaving gaping holes of critical information. The organization is just plain bad: It's not until Chapter 16 that you even learn how to create a table, after hundreds of pages of details on "complex possibilities". This book continuously puts advanced concepts in front of basic concepts and often ignores basic concepts altogether.

As a reference, the book is SORELY, SORELY lacking, with very few, if any examples of most SQL statements. Here's a classic example of the book's bad organization. You look up the TO_CHAR function, which converts a date or number to a character string and accepts a special format string, UNFORTUNATELY the specs on the format string are nowhere to be found; instead the book leads you on a wild scavenger hunt through hundreds of pages trying to find the information you seek. Perhaps by Oracle's attempt to integrate a tutorial with a reference they ended up botching both efforts.

With all this being said, I still have to admit that I use the book on a daily basis (embedded with post-its to mark the scattered info). It's often more efficient than wading through online documentation for quick info, and while I wouldn't consider it anywhere near a standard, it's the closest I've found to a useable reference -- but this says more about what's out there (or lack thereof) than the quality of this book.

After looking through several books for a simple date format command, I borrowed the Oracle Complete Reference book. I quickly found the command to do it, as well as numerous examples on how to create very unique date strings. I was very impressed. I am looking forward to my book when it arrives. Note: I have not reviewed the on-line part of it.

Good book. Must read for anyone supporting a very old instance of Oracle.

I have found Dave at directaccess a real help and easy to deal with. His delivery of this text was prompt and as promised. He is an honest and relaible dealer and I would shop with him again anytime.
The text was in like new condition as advertised. I also got additional comments from Directaccess on tutroing myself.

The book definitely isn't a good starting place, and the copy protection on the CD is quite annoying, but still, overall, the book is extremely useful. It's reference is occasionally circular but exhaustive and invaluable when attempting to tune your database or use odd commands.

If you are a beginner, this is not a book you are looking for. It is a wonderful reference book for Oracle database administrators.

This is one of the very best books you will ever come across on Oracle. Current education units tend to make this powerful RDBMS seems very complex. This book really breaks all the hard stuff on Oracle apart - piece by piece - and presents to the reader and developer, in plain English, instead of the ever present tech. ambiguities that tend to make matters more confusing, the complete RDBMS environment in a way that really helps in harnessing the power of this RDMBS. And most important, the CD which accompanies this book contains this entire book. This will immensely help those who are mobile workers, in that they can keep the actual book at home and carry the Electronic Edition of the book on their Notebook. IT REALLY HELPS ME A LOT ..