Oracle Book Choice

Written by Kay Ewbank

Monday, 18 March 2024

Article Index
Oracle Book Choice
PL/SQL

Page 2 of 2

Teach Yourself Oracle PL/SQL In 10 Minutes

Author: Ben Forta
Publisher: Sams
Pages: 288
ISBN: 978-0672328664

This is an Oracle-focused version of the author's more general SQL In 10 Minutes title. Awarding it 4.5 stars, we said that the book is well written and explains the topics well. The early chapters aren't (and can't really be) Oracle-specific, but that's not a criticism, it's just how SQL is. The book hasn't been updated since Oracle 12, but is still relevant and SQL hasn't changed.

Overall, we'd have liked more material on the more advanced topics, but what there is should be enough for the intended audience of novide database developers.

Oracle PL/SQL by Example

Authors: Benjamin Rosenzweig and Elena Rakhimov
Publisher: The Oracle Press
Pages: 528
ISBN: 978-0138062835

This book has been updated to cover later editions of Oracle, but our conclusions still apply. The book is very hands-on; you’re introduced to a concept, shown an example, then asked to work through an example yourself. The book is based on the Introduction to PL/SQL class taught at Columbia University.

Awarding it four stars, we said it is clearly written and follows a good step-by-step approach with plenty of examples and exercises (with sample solutions). As such, it’s a good way to begin with PL/SQL, and if you need to learn PL/SQL, you’ll find some sections of this book to be a really useful resource no matter what your experience level. We're just not sure whether there’s any single person who could benefit from the whole of it at once.

Oracle PL/SQL Programming

Author: Steven Feuerstein with Bill Prybil
Publisher: O'Reilly
Pages: 1392
ISBN: 978-1449324452

This is a classic book on Oracle PL/SQL programming, and while it hasn't been updated since Oracle 12, it is still highly recommended; we awarded it the maximum five stars.

This is no light read, either in length or in content. Feuerstein has an excellent writing style and uses humor and an easy chatty style to make the process of understanding PL/SQL as painless as possible. One point to note is that Feuerstein does assume you know Oracle’s version of SQL, so if you’re coming to the book from a different background such as T-SQL, you’ll need to get up to speed with Oracle SQL first to make the most of this book.

Pro Oracle SQL

Authors: Karen Morton, Kerry Osborne, Robyn Sands, Riyaj Shamsudeen, Jared Stil
Publisher: Apress
Pages: 580
ISBN: 978-1430262206

If you need to write SQL code for Oracle, this book should be on your bookshelf. This is the second edition of Pro Oracle SQL, updated to cover Oracle 12c, and with an extra chapter on 'cool SQL constructs'.

We gave the book five stars, saying that Karen Morton and her team combine good explanations of concepts with excellent knowledge of Oracle SQL, and the result is a book that is very understandable while explaining ideas such as execution plans and performance management so you really improve your SQL.

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