3 comments about Oracle Developer Forms Techniques.

1. This book is an excellent work describing the essential techniques for forms development. It has got valuable tricks of the trade involved in forms development and covers all new features of version 6 with live examples. I feel this book is a handy and expert reference to forms programmers and developers alike.



2. If you are looking for an advanced, to the point, and concise book, look no further! I am surprised that there has been only one review so far for this book. Oracle Forms is a failrly complex piece of tool. This book teaches you the 'right way' of using the software. It provides a ton of advanced tips like applying object oriented methods in forms, advanced GUI programming etc. A comprehensive index allows you to find areas of interest very quickly.

   Obviously, 226 pages of text could not cover a vast subject like Oracle Forms, however, this book gives enough pointers to lead you in the right direction. If you are a little experienced with Oracle Forms, buy this book to leap to the next level.




3. This book is badly written, and the organization could be considered bizarre or non-existant, depending on your point of view.

   That being said, if you really want to dig deeper into Oracle Forms, this book might help. The author shares a number of useful tricks, and the code is available at the publisher's site, so that is a help. In keeping with the bizarre tone, the code is in Word format, so if you don't have Word (I don't at work) you may need someone to reformat it for you. I had to rewrite all the examples anyway, for a decent layout. But, like I say, there are some good tricks to learn here, so if you have patience and are willing to dig, this book might be for you.

   The question is, tho: why are so many computer books written so badly? I guess it's because editors can't write software. Maybe I'll have to write one myself.

5 comments about Oracle Forms Developer's Handbook.

1. I am a beginner in Oracle Forms and Reports. I bought this book as a supplement to the class I am taking. The book talks about companion software, but there is no CD. It turned out to be downloadable SQL/PL*SQL scripts to be installed in my environment (You must have Oracle Developer client, not Windows environment, installed on your pc with permissions to create databases and tables, etc.) and run those scripts to setup the databases and tables. Very limited index doesn't help any more than my teacher, who puts up a Powerpoint presentation in the class and basically reads through each slide without much of an explanation for anything.

   I may return this book if I find a better book.




2. A great book to read and understand, but the support from author is bad. Still I would recommend this book.



3. A refence book without a good index becomes a novel you have to skim through. I had to do this on several occasions. What is sad is that the Table of Contents was pretty in depth (17 pages which is more than the index). When I need an answer I want a place in the book that will point me somewhere near the item I'm looking for. I was lucky because I had read the thing from cover to cover, so I had a general idea where to look. It covers the various form elements in advanced, but I could have gotten the same data from a help file.

   It would have been more useful with a better index. I found the downloadable sample files, but why not have a CD? Not recommended for the beginning Oracle user.




4. The book is full of typos and mistakes in the code examples. Even with that the book has been helpful in some situations but hard to use. It is written like a huge tutorial and if you don't get something in the previous section, the next section doesn't work. I just want to know how to do the code. I want specific examples that aren't dependent on other parts of the book. Why can't there be more books on this subject to choose from?



5. This is a tutorial, NOT a reference. As an experienced Oracle/IT professional, trying to learn Oracle Forms from this book has been extemely frustrating. The author is verbose rather than concise. Important information about a single topic may be spread across several sections making it difficult to get an answer to a specific question. As another reviewer stated, the index is weak. The author offers many warnings and tips that I eventually learned to test out for myself because, in a lot of cases, were just plain not true. There are tutorials on OOP, SQL, and PL/SQL that are tedious if you already have that background. I'd reccomend this book only for someone with little Oracle background who has a lot of time and patience.

1 comments about Oracle PL/SQL Built-ins Pocket Reference.

1. Being a pocket reference it could still use an "index" in the back of the book. But other than that it's great for non-beginners who forget the syntax of an Oracle Built-in package. Of course if you want more detail then get the full blown version of the book also by O'Reilly & Associates publishing.

   Gio

No comments about OCP Oracle Database 11g: Administration II Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-053) (Osborne Oracle Press).

4 comments about OCA Oracle Application Server 10g Administrator Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-311) (Osborne Oracle Press Series).

1. Managing a big database system like Oracle is not a trivial matter. The software is so complex, with many settings and fittings that can dramatically affect performance. This book is not on things like programming Oracle using SQL or any of the other big application areas. It is on the more mundane, and probably more important things like:
   
   Installation
   Managing the Application Server
   Managing the Internet Directory
   Managing the HTTP Server
   SSL and OracleAS Security
   The OracleAS Portal
   J2EE Applications OracleAS Web Cache
   
   The book is intended as a comprehensive preparation guide for the Oracle Application Server 10g Administrator Certified Associate (OCA) exam. Beyond that, this is a good reference book on how to set up and manage an Oracle 10g database.
   
   The book is supplied with a trial exam on CD-ROM that also provides the answers and detailed explanations. With registration on-line, an additional exam is available.



2. A very confusing book. It actually describes the Exam 1Z1-311 and not 1Z0-311 as it is stated here on Amazon.com. The 1Z1-311 exam is a beta exam and not available at Oracle any more.
   Besides that the book consists of a lot of copy/paste sentences from Oracle documentation set. I dropped the book and started to read the documentation set instead.



3. The author demonstrated lack of understanding of the topics covered, and no hands-on experience.



4. The book is inadequate as a means to prepare for the OCA exam.

5 comments about Oracle Scripts: Powerful Tools for DBAs and Developers.

1. We are used to books with example programs that contain errors. But this is Oracle Scripts, a book that is actually just a collection of scripts. Since the whole purpose of the book is to provide scripts to run, you would think the authors would have given them out to a dozen friends for testing. But nooooo....

   It's not just a matter of customizing the scripts for your system. The publisher's web site has a link for "updated" scripts, where you can download 20 scripts that either have bug fixes or were accidentally omitted entirely from the book's CD-ROM.

   Who is supposed to be interested in this book? Experienced DBA's will already have most of these scripts, or can find free versions from a number of sources on the web. New DBA's might like this collection if the book attempted to explain the output of the scripts, but no explanation is offered so they will be mystified.

   A better book is the one from Oracle Press, Annotated SQL and PL/SQL Archives.




2. The title of this book should be "Oracle Scripts for System & DB Administrators on Unix". If you're running Oracle on anything else skip this book! You'll be better of spending time on your own searching the web or writing the scripts for yourself (and yes, reinventing the wheel...unfortunately :-( I found only a couple of useful native SQL scripts that worked fine for me (on NT and MVS), but nothing that I could not find on the web or write by myself.

   I admit that it's hard to write an objective review of such book. You'll love it or you'll hate it - it all depends on which platform you run Oracle, how experienced you're in scripting, how many scripts you already have in your toolbox and how much time you're willing to spend testing the scripts from this book.

   As other readers already mentioned, you should visit O'Reilly web site first and download several updated scripts before you even start testing scripts in your environment.

   More universal approach to glue together SQL scripts for the purpose of this book would be with Tcl/Tk, so scripts could be run from Enterprise Manager or standalone. Just a thought..




3. There are a few useful scripts but I have to work more than I should to make them all work in an NT environemnt. The best two scripts 'alertlog' and 'every5' were written for Unix and I cannot use them as is w/o MUCH conversion. Also the book is VERY light on explaining the scripts (no source in book - impossible to review - scripts are only on CD). The best book on scripts so far is the Oracle Press 'PL/SQL Annotated Archives' by Loney. Now THAT book was worth ten times what I paid for it. It had many useful scripts ready for cut and paste.



4. If you have some time on your hands and want to line-by-line debug/modify/enhance a set of scripts that were originally written for Oracle 7, then buy this book. Otherwise, take a pass.

   Three years after it was published, there still is a need for Oracle Scripts: not because of any inherent excellence, but because the tools Oracle itself provides are somewhat obtuse. Be aware that the scripts reside only on the accompanying CD and are buggy. Get updates from the O'Reilly website.

   As some other reviewers have noted, the scripts are targeted for UNIX DBAs. Conversion to NT platform is not difficult, but you're buying the book to avoid unnecessary coding, aren't you? Lastly, and most annoyingly, there is very little supporting documentation in the text.




5. Almost all of the SQL scripts shown require UNIX scripts for execution. Unless you know how to convert the UNIX scripts to NT this book is not very useful.

4 comments about Oracle Disk I/O Tuning: Disk I/O Performance & Optimization for Oracle Databases (Oracle In-Focus series).

1. This book has a wrong title. I thought it would provide good material about tuning oracle disk i/o performance at expert level, but actually it is an introductory book on how disks work in general. It has a cheating title. Fortunately it's not that expensive.



2. I'm an unabashed fan of Mike Ault and I have every one of his books. Mike has always emphasized the importance of disk I/O in Oracle tuning and I'm glad to finally have a whole book on the topic.
   
   The text is very Oracle-centric, concise and shows all of the areas where Oracle performance declines from a bad disk layout. Rather than just being an overview, Ault dives deep into the I/O internals and shows at a microscopic level how Oracle interacts with the disk I/O sub-system.
   
   This is one of Mike's best books in years, and that's really saying something.



3. Book was missing the second part, April 25, 2005
   Reviewer: Alan Rosenthal "Matador Wannabe" (san diego, ca United States) - See all my reviews
   
   Hi,
   
   I have to agree completely with the previous reviewer. This book was badly named. It started out with a description of disk drives. Ok, fine, I don't mind a little review. But the review was still going on by page 100. The book only contained some brief and minor discussion of Oracle. There was one table from metalink on RAID recommendations from Oracle. There are only two chapters in the whole book that have the word "Oracle" in the title. One of them is on solid state disks and the other is called "Oracle 10g Disk Related Features" but is only about ASM.
   
   Disappointing



4. Because disk I/O is the main issue with Oracle this is a most-needed book and one that I recommend because it is through and has details about how to tell when disk is a problem and when you can monitor and fix disk I/O in Oracle databases.

5 comments about Lesson in Project Management.

1. Tom and Jeff Mochal have accomplished one of the most difficult aspects of training and mentoring others in the field of project management in their new book. Project Managers can attend classes, receive certifications, and still not have the benefit of an experienced Project Manager like Tom Mochal. Jeff has used his talent to take Tom's valuable and practical experience and made it easy to understand and apply immediately! If you are a project manager, you must have this book. Read through the various areas on risk, quality, scope, budget, etc. and apply these techniques today! You'll be glad you did. If you like what you read, (...). What are you waiting for?? Go see for yourself.



2. Rather pour. I think one should find those lessons info for free on the Web sources on project management.
   Every lessons has a little story half of it is completely irrelevant for the subject discussed.
   E.g. "The one thing I did know about Susan was she was a germ freak. She kept little moist toweletts in her desk drawer to wipe off the phone and doornobes periodically, and she also washed her hands more than anyone else I know." p.25
   "Ashley was married and had two children. She often volunteered at her kid's school and also helped out once a month at their neighbourhood church. She was wearing dark pants with a plain red turtleneck and red framed glasses..." p. 13
   and so on about half of page for each lesson, so you should expect more than 25 pages of such ladies novels in the 190 pages of text.
   No pictures, graphs, tables and any illustrative materials. Just a plain text. Several times it's hard to get the main idea of the lesson.
   Can recommend only as an additional to some serious book on project management. It's like a conversation with a sentimental old project manageк with a cup of tea.



3. This book would be most useful to someone who is currently running a project, is somewhat inexperienced, and who either knows or suspects that something may be going wrong. There are a lot of excellent situational examples of how to understand a problem, diagnose what to do appropriately to the size of the project, and resolve it. As noted by other reviewers, though, this shouldn't be taken as a book that contains a sequence of steps needed to run a successful project.
   
   My favorite explicit lesson was on underpromising and overdelivering. The authors point out that while that's a great approach, never use it as an excuse to sandbag your schedule or add more features that the client didn't necessarily ask for. Overdelivering should only come in the form of early or cheaper than expected delivery of the agreed-upon solution. I couldn't agree more.
   
   There was also a great implicit lesson buried in each of the lessons that wasn't called out explicitly and which at least one of the other reviewers failed to pick up on - the importance of developing a good rapport with project managers and members. In each of the lessons, the authors spend valuable book space describing fictional details and conversations tangential to the lessons at hand. However, I've found that to be an important part of conversations in all aspects of project management, as it's easier to have hard discussions about work-related problems when you've made it clear that you have empathy for them as a person and that any work-releated issues are not an attack on them.



4. This is a great book about project management. It's not like other books that you get tired of reading half way due to it's monotomy and over-terminology text. This books relate real project management cases in a story teller way that besides of making it fun, it also educate the reader. I just finished a project management class from University of Phoenix, and my goal is to become PMP certify. This book has motivaded me even more to continue seeking higher education.



5. I agree with the previous review that there are many implicit lessons to be learned--such as creating a rapport with the people you work with. Most projects fail because of communication--or lack there of--not technical issues. This book is full of nuggets of wisdom, albeit common sense for project managers who have learned them the hard way--from their own mistakes. So, do yourself a favor and buy this book so you can learn from other's mistakes.

3 comments about Oracle Data Dictionary Pocket Reference.

1. It lists about everything. It gives the table or view name and the column name and type. For the most part, it gives a one sentence description for the table/view. That's the extent of the details.



2. "ORACLE Data Dictionary Pocket Reference" describes (most of) the ORACLE data dictionary views. This book sorts the DD views according to subjects e.g. "Replication". Normally for each view you will find a sentence about the contents of the view and the columns with datatype and not null constraints (if present). For some views you will see a little longer explanation.

   I am a big fan on O'Reilly books and I own at lot (50+) O'Reilly books. From my point of view this book is superfluous and it should not have been printed. This book does not provide any detailed information about the columns of the views. The semantics of the data in the views is not explained at all. There is no information how to join the DD views to get the result you need. At one place the book states that you can join V$PROCESS and V$SESSION to find some more information about a session but it does not say how to join those view (V$SESSION.paddr = V$PROCESS.addr).

   This book does not add any information that can not be found in the ORACLE "Reference" manual. It actually provides less information. Most of the information can be extracted from ORACLE itself (DICT table and SQL*PLUS describe on the view). The ORACLE documentation can be read online and is more detailed.

   I did not find any big error in this book. The form, printing and index are of the normal O'Reilly high quality. This is worth 3 stars from me. However I will probably not look into this book again.




3. 
   Great book to have handy at work. I never remember all the Dictionary view names. May consider others....

No comments about Oracle E-Business Suite Security (Oracle).