Oracle PL/SQL by Example (3rd Edition) (Prentice Hall Professional Oracle Series) (Paperback)

by Benjamin Rosenzweig (Author), Elena Silvestrova (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A new edition of this title is available, ISBN-10: 0137144229 ISBN-13: 9780137144228

From the Back Cover

Start developing applications with Oracle PL/SQL-fast! This integrated book-and-Web learning solution teaches all the Oracle PL/SQL skills you need, hands on, through real-world labs, extensive examples, exercises, projects, and a complete Web-based training site. Oracle PL/SQL by Example, Third Edition covers Oracle 10G and all the fundamentals: Master PL/SQL syntax, iterative and conditional control, scoping, anchored datatypes, cursors, triggers, security, tables, procedures, functions, packages and Oracle-supplied packages-plus powerful new techniques for working with exceptions, cursors, collections, and records. Your free Web-based training module includes a Virtual Study Lounge where you can interact with other learners, work on new projects, and get updates!

Totally integrated with a FREE, state-of-the-art Oracle 10G learning Web site! Every Prentice Hall Oracle Interactive Workbook is fully integrated with its own exclusive Web site, giving you all this and more:

"Test Your Thinking" project solutions and detailed explanations Additional self-review exercises with instant feedback and explanations An exclusive Virtual Study Lounge where you can interact with other students!

Just the facts! No endless, boring discussions here! You'll learn hands on, through practical exercises, self-review questions, and real-world answers. Exclusive "Test Your Thinking" projects guarantee you'll go beyond rote knowledge to really master the subject! It's an integrated learning system that's proven to work!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 3 edition (September 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131172611
• ISBN-13: 978-0131172616
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #314,937 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You can access a PL/SQL executable with this book, September 29, 2003

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Very much a task oriented book, suitable for a classroom or self paced study. It is aimed at someone who wants or needs explicit lessons and exercises. Thoughtfully, the authors also furnished answers to the exercises. Sometimes with other computing books, I have wondered why their authors omit questions. Perhaps the nature of the topic makes it awkward to provide problem sets. But not for Oracle's PL/SQL language. So this book is chock-a-block with them.

To students, retention is greatly enhanced by doing, and the book will take you a long way into facility with PL/SQL if you can discipline yourself to go through it methodically and not peek at the answers till you have given the problems a fair go.

As far as the language itself, the book's presentation reminds me of a text on fortran or C, and unlike a text on java or C#. Firstly, the latter two are object-oriented, while PL/SQL, fortran and C are procedural. So if you have already learnt fortran or C and you read this book, step back and defocus a little from the specific syntax. Stylistically, the book has the flavour of many texts in those languages. Reinforced by PL/SQL not having a GUI. The I/O is character based. A slight retro feel. [Though PL/SQL should NOT have a GUI. It is optimised as a query language.]

One thing to note is that the book explains using examples and exercises that are at the subroutine or procedural level, as mentioned above. Bite sized. What it lacks are higher level examples that necessitate decomposing a problem into several procedures. But this may be unfair. Those are harder, more abstract issues, whereas this book is meant for someone who still needs to learn the syntax in the first place. It does suggest the utility of such a book, as a logical successor to this.

A final note relates to the problem sets. There is a difficulty with learning PL/SQL compared to, say, C or java. With C you can download an open source compiler. With java, you can get a free compiler from Sun or IBM. With SQL, there is the open source MySQL. Not so with PL/SQL. I don't think Oracle offers a free version. So if you are studying on your own, this is a severe quandary. How do you get a PL/SQL executable? Otherwise, the attraction of this book, or any other on PL/SQL, for that matter, is greatly restricted to classrooms or companies that already have that, and not to individuals. Well, the authors and the publisher offer access, at the publisher's website. This may be the strongest merit of the book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done. Oracle Education look out! , March 4, 2005

By	John (Southern California) - See all my reviews

I'm a developer and DBA who had not written PL/SQL in over a year. I used this book as a refresher.

This is the "Learning Perl" of PL/SQL, meaning: a beginner can learn from it, and an experienced hack can use it as a reference.

I consider lots of good sample code to be important when learning a programming language. Here it is, as a series of labs, with intelligent discussion. It's like having a friend who's an expert act as a personal tutor. It has complete, well-rounded coverage of PL/SQL fundamentals: control structures, stored procedures, packages, and a good chapter on triggers. In rare cases where some keyword is introduced with no explanation, it's usually covered in the following section.

It is nearly the quality of Oracle course materials, but with (a tolerable amount of) typos. Annoyingly, some of the typos are incorrect answers in the appendix; the rest are obvious typos and therefore not too confusing.

Chapter 1 is deceptively basic, explaining what a program is, what a programming language is, etc., but chapter 2 jumps right into PL/SQL with no further ado. The book progresses in baby steps as far as PL/SQL is concerned. Although knowledge of SQL is assumed, some concepts like commit & rollback, savepoints, and sequences are introduced and explained for beginners. It is also assumed that the reader:

- knows what DML, DDL, and the DUAL table are;
- has an account that can create objects (the "Scott" demo account will do); and
- knows how to connect to the database with SQL*Plus or a development tool (IDE).

With an IDE I was able to work through it in about thirty hours. I just read chapters I was already strong in without working those labs, but that time included plenty of puttering and experimenting with the lab material I did work.

I also bought 10g "PL/SQL Programming" by Urman, et. al. but dove into this book first. The two books overlap. The freely available "PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference" from Oracle is still a must-have.

Densely packed with pertinent information and very little else, it's about 99% useful information. Like the blurb says, "Just the facts." It is a complete Oracle course, so it was worth $2400 in that respect.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not deep, October 17, 2004

By	V. Chkliar (Miami) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is not as good as Alice Rischert's "Oracle SQL by example". Looks like it is written for people who never programed before. So it teaches how to program using examples of pl/sql. Might be good for beginners.