Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Broad but surprisingly incomplete for its size, December 4, 1999
I used this book as the textbook in a college course in learning SQL using ORACLE that I was teaching. I surveyed the book in the process of preparing the reading assignments, then taught the topics. To my surprise, too often, I presented material commonly used that the book did not address or did not cover well (such as "FM" formatting code as a simple example). Students found the book inadequate for understanding, and I needed to cover material in lecture because the book did not adequately cover. The tuning chapter does an excellent job of abstracting the tuning process but it does not relate that discussion to explain plan output. For its discussion of SQL/PLUS I had to supplement by giving them a complete copy of the SQL/PLUS command reference from the online documentation to allow them to perform their assignments. The book is adequate, an overview of Oracle. But for its size, it's missing the information necessary to move confidently into practice. Unfortunately, this book may still be the best available.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ultimate Oracle Reference, December 5, 1998
By A Customer
1. Oracle online documentation is notoriously awkward. This book is no exception. But who cares? Forget the CD -- use the print. If you really want something to view on your computer, join the Oracle Developer Program. It's free, and many of the CD's have ALL the Oracle manuals in HTML format! Plus you get free trial software including the server software.2. This book is NOT suitable for learning the basics of SQL (such as how to do a join). Any basic "Learning SQL" book will teach that. What it IS suitable for is finding function syntax, format masks, as well as understanding more complex issues like how the SQL optimizer works and how to code accordingly. It's also not a very good PL/SQL reference. Check out the author Steven Feuerstein for his books on those subjects. Don't expect one book to do it all, but damn, this book comes pretty close. For in-depth server information, try the Oracle Server Concepts manual.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Useful book containing many stupid things, March 6, 2000
First, the Oracle8 Complete Reference is a useful reference book. But try not to pay too much attention to the actual words of the author(s). Some of them are laughable. I'll keep this brief, so here's just one excerpt:"ORACLE8 does not presently support an OO concept called polymorphism. Polymorphism is the ability of the same instruction to be interpreted different ways by different objects. For example, assume that the instruction is 'fire'. The 'fire' instruction, as applied to the 'employee' object, would be interpreted in one manner; the same instruction, as applied to the 'gun' object, would be interpreted in a totally different manner." Apparently the author doesn't know the difference between polymorphism and a pun. He certainly doesn't have any understanding of what polymorphism really means. His defense of ORACLE SQL extensions is even sillier, and his presentation of normalization is oblique and confused (and fortunately, because he apparently doesn't really understand it, he only wastes a couple of pages on the topic), but as I said, I'll keep this brief. What's bad about this is that the author is filling fresh new minds with misinformation. But that's hardly a rarity in technical publishing nowadays. Decent books on DBMS are rare. This isn't a decent book, but it is a decent reference for ORACLE8, and probably better than many other "big thick book" alternatives. Caveat emptor.
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