Customer Reviews

Oracle9i PL/SQL: A Developer's Guide

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

 

 

I've just finished the first 100 pages of the book, so my views are definitely incomplete. Nevertheless, I would like to share some of my feelings toward this book:

1. Many code fragments are repeated unnecessarily, making the book a bit too thick (around 670 pages)

2. In avergage, I think, every page contains a "Tip" or "Caution" box, which I think should tell you some important insights from the author. However, most of the tips are as simple as "Never fetch from a cursor before opening it" or "Don't fetch from an already closed cursor". Maybe I'm too picky, but it's really annoying (and time-consuming) to read so many plain-simple tips.

3. The formatting of code is terrible. Although code formatting is a personl style issue, I think the author/formatter should at least make sure the parenthesis are easily identified, and each "successive" indentations are of the same length (say, each level of identation = 3 spaces). But this book fails to do so.

On the other hand, as far as I've read, the content is mostly correct, and the code fragments run as expected.

Bulusu Lakshman gets a standing ovation for a brillantly written book. If your PL/SQL skills lag behind Oracle 9i, then this book will bring you up to date with clearly written text and excellent examples.

It should really be billed as more of an advanced text on PL/SQL, as the beginner is likely to have a difficult time if Bulusu's work is his first exposure to PL/SQL.

However, for the veteran PL/SQL developer who does not know reference cursors, cursor expressions, bulk binding, dynamic SQL, etc., this is the book to lead you to clear understanding.

Kudos to Bulusu Lakshman.

I like the organization of this book as well as its focus on Oracle 9i's new PL/SQL functionality. If you have prior experience with PL/SQL and need to get up to speed with the latest features quickly, this is the right book for you. I like the coverage on Native Dynamic SQL, Bulk Binds, and Object Relational features. The sample code is very helpful to demo the new language syntax. To me this book has been serving as a handy reference as I code for Oracle 9i for the first time.

I normally never write reviews of books. But, this book is amazing...I am taking a course that originally assigned Urman's book on PL/SQL. Urman, I am sure, is well known, as is his book, but it is not as clearly written as this book, and does not teach the concepts as well as this one. You could certainly use this book to teach yourself, or for aid in a course...my simple advice: skip Urman, and get this book!

This book really makes PL/SQL concepts very clear. I was actully refreshing my PL/SQL concepts after 3 years and this book was very helpful to me. The way each and every topic is presented in here left no doubt about that topic in my mind. This book is worth reading even for them who are new to PL/SQL. All the topics starting from Cursors, Packages, Stored Procedures, Functions, Triggers, Exceptions....etc are presented in the most conceptual and clear format.