Customer Reviews

Oracle8i for Dummies

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Oracle beginners will definitely want to take a look at Oracle 8i for Dummies. This is one Oracle book that requires very little prior knowledge of relational databases. The author will get you going with a good theoretical discussion of topics such as database structures, data normalization and the use of primary and foreign keys. If you don't need a theory primer, then jump straight into the sample data examples that form the core of this book.

This book is true to its `Dummies' tradition. The examples, which are provided on the CD that accompanies the book, are very down-to-earth. The author demystifies even the most complicated features of Oracle 8i, such as object types and object tables. The SQL presented in the examples is easy to understand and is more than adequate for beginners. The book will also give you enough basic knowledge of database administration to keep you out of trouble. And yes, the source code on the CD installs and works well.

To benefit from this book, you need to have Oracle 8i, the Oracle Enterprise Manager, and Oracle WebDB already installed on your system. All of these products can be downloaded for free, on a trial basis, at technet.oracle.com. The book does not cover the installation of these products.

I got what I wanted from this book. I was a complete beginner to Oracle. I needed an inexpensive way to get exposed to Oracle's complicated features. For me, this book was the answer.

Oracle 8i for Dummies has two things going for it that other Oracle books don't. First, it sells for 1/2 the price of the others and second, it isn't 400+ pages thick. I was able to go through 8i, Enterprise Manager and WebDB within a day or two and get a good feel for the types of things that can be done. I haven't seen another book yet which would have helped me accomplish this.

I have to admit that those reviews complaining about lack of depth or completeness are somewhat valid. However, if you want this, go get one of the 400+ page monsters. If you want to get started fast, grab this book.

My strategy was to use this book as a starting point. I gained the experience to get around the most significant features with relative ease and I also learned which parts of Oracle 8i I really am interested in. I think that this book was perfect for this. Now I can get a more advanced book to cover the specific topics I need to dive into and expand my Oracle knowledge further.

As the guy who wrote that last pan, I thought I'd give you my recommendation for some absolute beginner books I HAVE found to be helpful.

They're both published by Oracle Press.

First, there's "Oracle NT Handbook," by Adkoli and Velpuri.

And there's "Oracle 8i for Windows NT Starter Kit" by Bobrowski.

For my dollar, these books are everything that "Oracle 8i for Dummies" should have been but wasn't.

I thought the book was a perfect introduction to Oracle 8. It was a comprehensive enough intro to oracle and now im about to start to venture further into studying oracle developer and some DBA stuff. This combined with the documentation you get for free with the oracle software, gave me a perfect learning experience.

Also, the sense of humor and analogies they use made it a lot easier to cope with all the information i was taking in. After reading this book, i am fairly fluent in SQL commands, have a broad familiarity with relational database structures and throughly understand Oracle.

This book combined with the Oracle documentation is in my opinion an absolutaly perfect intro. Reading two things trying to tell you the same thing, gives you a much broader and more direct understanding of new concepts, not to mention it makes things a LOT easieer. Plus there were things in each the dummies book and the provided documentation that were not covered by one, but covered by the other.

I've read plenty of other Dummies books over the years, and it seems like the series has gotten worse as has attempted to tackle more specific, technical subjects. This is one example of how they've failed.

Better books in the series are typically clearly written, with specific examples and explanations. This one is all over the map. It's like listening to someone with attention-deficit disorder. "Here's this cool thing you can do, trust me, and here's how you do this *one* thing with it, but then, oh wait, there's this other thing, but wait, before i tell you about that, let me explain this other thing..." etc, etc, etc, ad naseum.

One of my biggest beefs with the book is that the author leads you through these step-by-step procedures, but there is never a clear explanation as to what exactly you're supposed to be doing. You just do it, and i guess you're supposed to figure out what it is by doing it. Wrong!

The experience of reading this book is similar to knowing how to sound out and read the words of a written foreign language, without the benefit of understanding what the words mean. As each chapter went by, i'd wonder what the hell it is i just read.

Look elsewhere for intro information. This is one will leave you dizzy.

I wish it would have included some basic installation instructions. I couldn't get past the starting the instance manager on these instructions alone.

I don't know exactly what my problem is, but this book has left me infuriated by how unhelpful it is.

I freely admit that I'm totally new to database programming and administration, but then, that's why I'm buying a "dummies" book isn't it? And I found satisfaction in "SQL for dummies" -- it met my needs as a programmer.

I came to this book looking for an introduction to database administration. Really basic stuff -- how to install and create a simple database, then configure a couple of users I can run queries (potentially destructive, in the hands of a novice) against my isolated sandbox without risking production data.

But from my limited perspective, having just installed Oracle 8.1.5 on Windows 2000 server, I find that the administration tools described in Oracle 8i for dummies are not even installed with Oracle 8.1.5 for Windows NT!

Oracle 8i for dummies describes"Instance Manager" and "Enterprise Manager." But Oracle 8.1.5 supplies "Oracle Administration Assistant" and "Database Configuration Assistant." But this isn't just a re-naming -- these tools appear to function completely differently.

I don't know exactly how this happened. It is possible that I've somehow created myself a "warped" installation of 8.1.5. But, my hypothesis is that Oracle 8i for Dummies is describing a down-rev version of Oracle -- something that Oracle used to ship, but that is no longer the default configuration.

This wouldn't be a problem if "O8fD" described administration using SQL, the "lingua franca" of database programmers and administrators everywhere. But while a chapter is supplied on SQL, that's reserved for some programming tasks.

I Recommend that DB programmers get "SQL for Dummies." I recommend that aspiring DBAs who have a "guru" to consult, ask their guru first to find out if this book will be helpful with their particular configuration. And I recommend that aspiring DBAs looking to install/configure 8.1.5 "out of the box" look elsewhere. Like me, you'll be back to square zero.

This book was obviously written on a tight deadline. Complete omissions of topics such as triggers and sequences means you can't do much with Oracle if you only have this book to go on. Someone needs to write a book that helps the SQL Server / Access programmer delve into Oracle.

I had trouble at first but the author has responded to several emails and helped me past the rough spots. Things are sailing along smoothly now.

Hits OEM, WebDB, JVM, and SQL plus. Mrs. Dieter's wild ride of oracle features. Gives a broad into to oracle8i cool stuff.