Warning! Don't buy this Oracle book.

Well, this was my experience when buying this book anyway.

"Oracle Development Unleashed", 3rd Edition, by Sams.

The CD that comes with the book is very much flawed:
- It says in the book (not on the back cover, but on the second

     last page or so, where it describes the CD), that "all"
     source code from the book is on the cd. I don't know
     how they define "source code", but there is code, whether
     it be Java, or PL/SQL, etc, spread throughout the book.
     What's on the CD? Source code from a whopping TWO
     chapters in the book, and only a few examples at that!
     And there are over FIFTY chapters in the book itself!


- The back of the book says that the CD contains trial 

     versions of 3rd party software, and lists 4 examples,
     including Crystal Reports.
     What's on the CD? Not Crystal Reports nor ANY of the
     trial software that's listed on the back of the book, but
     completely different trial software!


- The back of the book mentions an "electronic library" with

     two other Oracle books. Well, these books aren't on the
     CD - what it's referring to is a site (www.mcp.com or
     some such site - I can't remember which one exactly)
     where one can download these books. So buying this
     book simply gives you the URL where you can go
     to download these books. WOW. That web site is open
     to the public anyway - it's not like buying this book
     would somehow give you special access!

One other thing (which by itself wouldn't be justifiable to return the book) is that Oracle 8i is written about inside the book. I can't remember whether the cover of the book actually says anything about "Oracle 8i", but I'm just warning that although it appears that there's good Oracle 8i info in there, the book was actually published in Jan99, and it refers to Oracle 8i as still being "in beta", so the information in this book about Oracle 8i wouldn't be as useful.

Fortunately, the bookstore I bought it from gave me my money back (even though they normally just have a book exchange policy, not money back), after they looked at the CD to see that I was telling the truth.

If you bought this book and received a CD with the proper information on it, do let us know! Received on Sat Nov 04 2000 - 22:58:28 CST