Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 [Paperback]

Sue Harper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2009

Covering SQL Developer fundamentals as well more intermediate and advanced topics, this book uses in-depth explanation and detailed examples to help you get the most out of Oracle SQL Developer. The book has a modular structure, so that you can dip into any chapter that covers your current area of focus and get going. This book is for Oracle developers who want to ease their database development, and enhance their productivity using Oracle SQL Developer. You should have a programming knowledge of SQL and PL/SQL, and a general familiarity with Oracle database concepts.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sue Harper

Sue Harper was a senior school mathematics and science teacher by profession. It was this teaching qualification that opened the door to Oracle in South Africa, where Sue started as a SQL, PL/SQL, SQL Forms, and Reports instructor in 1992. Before long she'd added Oracle Designer to her repertoire and soon left for the UK, to join the Designer curriculum development team. Sue was a course writer and then product manager for Oracle Designer for many years, traveling extensively meeting customers and training Oracle staff and instructors. Sue was later product manager for Oracle JDeveloper working with database and modeling tools in that product. Sue is currently product manager for Oracle SQL Developer, SQL Developer Data Modeler, and SQL Developer Migrations. Based at home, Sue works with her team, scattered around the world and customers, running web-based training sessions or helping with individual queries. She frequently attends conferences where she presents SQL Developer material and works with customers on their queries.

Sue lives in West London, where she enjoys walking with her camera and her dog in the extensive local parks and further afield throughout the UK.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (October 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847196268
• ISBN-13: 978-1847196262
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #472,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 - Finally a great book to go along with this great tool., February 9, 2010

By 

James Priest "thecrumb" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 (Paperback)

I've been using Oracle SQL Developer I think since the very first initial betas. I could never stand the TOAD interface and the few bugs I encountered with SQL Developer were never bothersome enough to stop using the tool.

Over the years SQL Developer has matured very nicely and now is very stable and feature rich.

Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 by Sue Harper covers the latest release for SQL Developer - 2.1. This release brought a lot of stability to the project and also introduced the new Data Modeler from Oracle.

I've been skimming through the book for the last week or so. I honestly thought since I've been using SQL Developer for so long there would be very little new to me in the book but I've been pleasantly surprised and have picked up a lot of small tips that have helped me work smarter and more efficiently with SQL Developer.

The book covers quite a bit:

* Install, configure, customize, and manage your SQL Developer environment
* Includes the latest features to enhance productivity and simplify database development
* Covers reporting, testing, and debugging concepts
* Meet the new powerful Data Modeling tool - Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
* Detailed code examples and screenshots for easy learning

A few useful tips I've picked up since reading the book have been:

* The ability to highlight and filter data in the grids. This is really useful when you are trying to dig through some complicated data looking for very particular information.
* Using bind variables in the worksheet.
* The code formatter - cleaning up my mess!

What else does the book cover? There are chapters devoted to PL/SQL, dubugging and tuning, extending SQL Developer, source control integration (using Subversion) and a large chapter on the Data Modeler which I'm just waiting for a new project to start to begin exploring that particular tool.

If you are just getting started using SQL Developer I'd highly recommend the book. It will get you up to speed quickly and seems useful as a quick reference. If you are an experienced SQL Developer user I still think the added section on the new Data Modeler will be quite useful.

4.0 out of 5 stars Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 - Great Book!, February 8, 2010

By 

David Jason Bennett - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 (Paperback)

I've been using Oracle's SQL Developer tool on and off since it's "Project Raptor" days. I had yet to come across a definitive and all encompassing guide to using SQL Developer, until the UPS driver delivered the book into my hands a few weeks ago.

The book does a fantastic job of covering everything from basic installation and configuration to data modeling to creating your own custom extensions to SQL Developer. I was happy to see that it was written for all audiences from beginners to advanced users. Unlike a lot of "how to" books written about Oracle tools, this book isn't packed full of fluff. The book contains 13 chapters in 459 pages and covers all of the key features of the tool and more. The chapters are concise and contain well thought out examples and illustrations. There are even small sections within topic areas that provide what I call "insider tips" containing useful tidbits of information.

I took this book to work with me over a two week period to verify it's usefulness as a day to day tool. In that two week period, I read the book cover to cover and actually learned quite few new things. I was most impressed with the coverage of new features such as the new data modeling component, and integration with Oracle APEX ... new tricks for old dogs! Chapter13, which covers the data migration feature, is an absolute gem. The data migration feature is (in my opinion) one of the most valuable and useful components of SQL Developer. I have actually used this feature to migrate SQL Server databases (structure and data) in their entirety to Oracle. Every step of the migration can be accomplished using SQL Developer, and chapter 13 covers the process very well.

The bottom line ... I give this book two thumbs up! It's definitely a must have for your tech library if you are a user of Oracle SQL Developer.


Jason Bennett
[...]

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for beginners and long term users alike!, February 3, 2010

By 

Douglas A. Gault - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 (Paperback)

I've been using SQL-Developer since it's initial beta release, and have followed it's progress and evolution with great interest. Having used it as much as I have, I wondered how much I would get out of this book.

To my surprise and delight, there were a lot of little golden nuggets. Some things that I had always wondered about, and some things that I didn't even know the product could do. For instance, I had never really taken the time to fathom the difference between code snippets and code templates, and this is explained very clearly in the book. Another subtlety are some of the less known preference settings, such as whether or not to open a PL/SQL unit of first click, or whether or not to compile PL/SQL with debug info by default.

In the book, Sue Harper covers everything from install (on multiple platforms) all the way through set-up and extending the product to suit your own needs. She introduces you to where important preferences files are stored, how to back them up and how to rest your environment to "factory install" state. Sue also covers topics such as data migration, integration with Application Express, and integration with source code control systems such as SVN, CVS and others.

Sue really shows how well she knows the product and has done an excellent job of laying this out, so that it proves itself as a desktop reference as well as a introductory and educational.

If you're new to SQL-Developer, this is a great learning too. If you're an old hand like me, you might be surprised what you learn!