Customer Reviews

Oracle SQL Developer 2.1

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

 

 

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.

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
[...]

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!

In a few words: I'm impressed. It's a must read for everybody who's working with Oracle.

For those of you who never used SQL Developer, is a GUI like Toad or PL/SQL Developer. The main difference is that it's free and made by Oracle. As a former user of PL/SQL Developer I have to say that Oracle SQL Developer reached its maturity, Oracle is investing a lot of efforts in developing this tool and this is why now SQL Developer is the most used tool for Oracle development, which is quite impressive considering it has just 2 or 3 years since it was launched.

I was using SQL Developer since it was on beta, still called Project Raptor, and I witnessed the way it grew day by day. From a very simple GUI the development team added:

* migration capabilities, making Oracle Migration Workbench deprecated
* schema copy, schema compare
* import/export capabilities
* SVN/CVS integration
* Data modeling
* excellent reporting capabilities

Now, coming back to the book: what's better than having a book describing all the above written by the Product Manager of the tool? Sue did a fantastic job writing the book and now everybody have a reference (with a lot of examples and screenshots) for all the capabilities of SQL Developer.

I have to recon that there were quite a few things in the book that I have no idea they exists. This is mostly due to the fact that the product is on such a heavy development and the releases are launched very frequently.

After reading the ebook I am seriously thinking of buying the hard-copy of it. Again, it's something that everybody that deals with Oracle must have.

Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 is an excellent resource for anyone who is working within the Oracle environment. It reads very easily, has great examples and is very relevant. I especially like the sections related to the new data modeling tool. There is also a key section for those who want to migrate away from SQL Sever, Sybase and DB2. All in all, a must have for someone new to oracle and a great desk reference for the old-timer.