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Title: Oracle8: The Complete Reference by George Koch, Kevin Loney ISBN: 0-07-882396-X Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Pub. Date: 01 August, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $59.99

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (61 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: OK, but just a reference book for people who knows
Comment: The authors pretend to present the book as a guide for learning; nothing further from the truth. This book is only for professionals and scholars and is just a reference guide. Some even say that it is not such a complete reference, but I believe it is OK. If the reader has not had exposure to relational theory and database design, this book is simply useless. In chapter 2 they present the reader with some relational database concepts, including Normalization. I can just imagine the face of a person who has never read about databases, a blank screen! For database students, teachers and professionals, yes, the book has value. But the topics are not well organized, they could have done better. For example: all query commands could have been discussed first, then all table creation + insertion + deletion, etc. Formatting could have been the last topic, just before administration.

Rating: 5
Summary: Oracle8: The Complete Reference
Comment: I loved this book back in its 7.0 version days. The first few chapters use an example from the 1700's, a business ledger. They use this example to explain how relational databases relate to a real world example. Great idea. But I agree with other reviewers that other books are needed to suppliment a beginner such as CJ Date's. Personally, I like Joe Celko's stuff.

My problem with this book is my problem with Oracle in general. The book vomits features but many of the features discussed I can think of little practical use or I wonder why the RDBMS does do it automatically or why there is no GUI. The book makes no mention of Oracles lack of some SQL92 syntax such as OUTER JOIN syntax. This would lead a beginner to think *= is the standard. But its not. A beginner needs to understand the ambiguous results such syntax can lead to but the book doesn't mention this. See Microsoft Press' "Inside SQL Server 6.5" (or greater )for a nice disussion of this issue and solutions for working with *= syntax. Also much of the book is the same from versions published 5 years ago. But if you look at Oracle's software that's not too surpising since Oracle software looks like its about 5 years behind with its clumsy GUI's and rediculous on-line help. Half of the difficulty in using Oracle stems from its dated interfaces. Perhaps Oracle should just fix its DBA tools and then we wouldn't need such huge books. But if you think humans should serve machines or you don't feel like fighting the windmill buy this book.

Rating: 2
Summary: Huge Reference, But of Very Little Value
Comment: This book is huge, at 1344 pages it is huge. But not at all useful. Information is too darn difficult to find, and more often that not it is simply not there. I could not find anything on Dynamic SQL, and very little on SQL Load - something a supposedly 'Complete Reference' of Oracle8 should cover. Also, the absolutely paucity of examples makes it difficult to figure out correct syntactical usage without at least some trial and error. Use one if available at your company or library or if you can borrow a copy - just don't waste money buying one - new or used.