This book is erroneously named. There's barely anything about PL/SQL. It's just a hodge-podge on oracle database server and oracle application server with minimum coverage on both.

PL/SQL is an Oracle proprietary language that is available in a variety of Oracle products, and is somewhat different and differently used in each Oracle product. If you want to learn Oracle database server PL/SQL get books by Alice Rischert or Scott Urman because their coverage of PL/SQL is well explained and in depth.

This book is erroneously named. There's barely anything about PL/SQL. It's just a hodge-podge on oracle database server and oracle application server with minimum coverage on both.

PL/SQL is an Oracle proprietary language that is available in a variety of Oracle products, and is somewhat different and differently used in each Oracle product. If you want to learn Oracle database server PL/SQL get books by Alice Rischert or Scott Urman because their coverage of PL/SQL is well explained and in depth.

I've been developing with Sybase and SQL Server for about 5 years with very limited experience with Oracle in that time. I purchased this book hoping to get up to speed on the differences between Oracle's PL/SQL and the Sybase/Microsoft T-SQL syntax. From the title this book seemed appropriate for the job. In short, while the book might be an adequate, albeit SLOW, introduction to Oracle, it covers very little actual PL/SQL.

If you are a programer/engineer/dba looking to "learn Oracle PL/SQL", interested in practical applications of such fundamental topics as constraints, foreign keys, indexes, joins, cursors, views, triggers, corelated subqueries and the like, look elsewhere. Don't take my word for it--take a peek at the index or table of contents and you'll see that the focus of this book has very little to do with PL/SQL.

I've been developing with Sybase and SQL Server for about 5 years with very limited experience with Oracle in that time. I purchased this book hoping to get up to speed on the differences between Oracle's PL/SQL and the Sybase/Microsoft T-SQL syntax. From the title this book seemed appropriate for the job. In short, while the book might be an adequate, albeit SLOW, introduction to Oracle, it covers very little actual PL/SQL.

If you are a programer/engineer/dba looking to "learn Oracle PL/SQL", interested in practical applications of such fundamental topics as constraints, foreign keys, indexes, joins, cursors, views, triggers, corelated subqueries and the like, look elsewhere. Don't take my word for it--take a peek at the index or table of contents and you'll see that the focus of this book has very little to do with PL/SQL.

I've only read three chapters so far. It's been very good actually - I knew some SQL beforehand, although nothing very complicated, and it has been pretty easy for me to understand as well as very helpful for me in learning how to use PL/SQL. It has genuinely useful examples, and also provides tips as to how to perform unit testing on stored procedures and functions.

Another very useful thing the author does is list common and not-as-common mistakes that a programmer may make (which may not always result in errors or exceptions), hence possibly saving you the trouble of hours of debugging.

The only problem I've had with it is that he doesn't treat foreign keys as constraints. One of his sample column declarations is: "isbn VARCHAR2(100) FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES books (isbn)", but I kept getting an error until I changed it to: "isbn VARCHAR2(100), FOREIGN KEY (isbn) REFERENCES books (isbn)". I am not sure if this is a peculiarity of my installation (running Oracle 9i), but a check online reveals that many people also consider foreign keys a constraint.

Except for that problem, I would have given this book 5 stars.

I've only read three chapters so far. It's been very good actually - I knew some SQL beforehand, although nothing very complicated, and it has been pretty easy for me to understand as well as very helpful for me in learning how to use PL/SQL. It has genuinely useful examples, and also provides tips as to how to perform unit testing on stored procedures and functions.

Another very useful thing the author does is list common and not-as-common mistakes that a programmer may make (which may not always result in errors or exceptions), hence possibly saving you the trouble of hours of debugging.

The only problem I've had with it is that he doesn't treat foreign keys as constraints. One of his sample column declarations is: "isbn VARCHAR2(100) FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES books (isbn)", but I kept getting an error until I changed it to: "isbn VARCHAR2(100), FOREIGN KEY (isbn) REFERENCES books (isbn)". I am not sure if this is a peculiarity of my installation (running Oracle 9i), but a check online reveals that many people also consider foreign keys a constraint.

Except for that problem, I would have given this book 5 stars.

I use a self-taught approach to learn new things like most people. And, like most people, I get frustrated with the lengthy superfluous nature of how-to books which throw everything in, including the kitchen sink. This book starts off well, and you can learn from it at a comfortably progressive pace, but it could use a larger scope. The author leaves a lot of code out of the book, though he does explain parts of it. In the end, the project he uses to illustrate PL/SQL becomes more complicated than it needs to be for a tutorial exercise. Still, I haven't seen anything better.

I've been a self taught Oracle PL/SQL developer for two years, so I was sceptical on reading a "Learning" book. After reading the first few chapters I was able to make improvements to my PL/SQL programs. It was definitely worth the time and money. The examples are well written and simple enough to make sense, but not too simple that they are "duh" type examples. I also liked the fact that the book explains how to set up and use Oracle/Apache to make PSP pages (Stored Procedures that generate web content). The PSP section makes up a good portion of the book that I didn't know was in it before I got it. With plenty of real-world experience tips, a section on tools and security, it will be a while before I have this ingrained and used on a daily basis. I defiantly got more than I was looking for.

This 300+ page book is a gem. It goes straight to the point about how to use PL/SQL. With clear examples and tips to make you a better developer.

It goes straight to the point, to learn and use Oracle's PL/SQL in an effective way. This book is a gem!!

As a Oracle DBA I needed an intoduction to PL/SQL.
This is exactly the kind of book I was looking for.
Excellent style, I enjoyed the time I spent reading this book. Well done.

I'm a programmer familiar with SQL and needing to learn PL/SQL to use with SQL Navigator and SQL*Plus. Chapter 4 suddenly assumes you'll need to work with the internet and all of the examples deal with setting up interactive web pages. That would be great for a shop using that kind of interface. In my position, I don't have access to servers that would post a page, so the book now sits on a shelf until it becomes relevant. There were no alternate examples. I was pretty disappointed. Other than that, a great book!

Learning Oracle PL/SQL is one of the best books I have read on learning this subject. This book has a little for everyone: you'll learn something if you know the basics of SQL, but have never really done anything with it. You'll also learn something if you've had a lot of experience with Microsoft SQLServer (and T-SQL), but are looking to transition you knowledge to Oracle PL/SQL.

You'll learn about coding anonymous blocks, stored procedures, functions, and packages. You will learn how to write and use cursors, how to organize code into packages, Oracle security basics, Oracle built in packages, and error handling. The book also covers some basics of using SQL*Plus, to make your life a little easier.

If you need a relatively small (less than 400 pages) introduction to Oracle PL/SQL, then this is definitely a book you will want to pick up. If you need more in-depth information after reading this book, pick up the authors' other book Oracle PL/SQL.

Though by the time this book came out, I've become an intermediate PL/SQL guru, I decided to buy it anyway, just to read it and perhaps maybe gain some insight that may have been overlooked in the original "bible" Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 2nd. Ed.

The book is concise with one and only one project example to lead you through all the PL/SQL constructs and when and why they are used. For me, I skimmed through it but did find help on "overloading" in packages which isn't discuss since it is a "beginner's" book.

Kudos to Bill and Steve for a great book. I can add it to my library of Oracle based O'Reilly publishing books.