Re: Why is it so hard to find?

Bob Woodward wrote:

> True, I've not read the whole manual. I've tried looking at the index, the
> TOC, quick browse of "Getting Started" and tons of Google searches. My
> first sentence is what I'm trying to do to start with. Figure out what
> files there are. I understand the SELECT, DESC, and a few other of the
> commands, but I'm feeling inadequate by not being able to visualize "the
> system." I can follow the tutorial commands that say "type this and you'll
> get that" but I need to be able to explore beyond the canned commands.
>

Sounds like you are interested.

The first place to start is on the Oracle site at http://otn.oracle.com - get an id (as far as I can tell trhese id's are spam-free) and start looking around.

In the documentation area, find the Concepts manual for the version you are interested in learning and walk through that. If that seems too much top start with, I strongly recommend O'Reilly's "Oracle Essentials - 2nd Ed" (see http://oracle.oreilly.com) as a higher level intro.

> As to what I'm trying to accomplish, I'm just trying to figure out what
> Oracle is all about. I've programmed many years in a relational database
> environment and always looked at Oracle with a bit of puzzlement. Figured
> it was time to step to the other side of the fence and expand my knowledge.

There are several ways of getting involved with an Oracle database - as an administrator, as a database developer, as an applications programmer and as a data user.

It sounds like you are trying to move from app programmer toward database developer. My interpretation is roughly "an app programmer deals with data manipulation and data query/reporting" whereas "a database developer deals with managing the types of data the app programmer deals with". In this case, definintely go through the concepts manual!

> As far as books, I've got "Oracle - A beginners guide" from Oracle Press, a
> generic Learn SQL book and a number of web sites I've found.

Others will advise specific books - my recomendation right now is Wrox Press books wriiten or co-authored by Tom Kyte. Unfortunately Wrox Press is out of business, but you can find references by looking for books on Amazon using the keywords "Kyte" and "Oracle" - if you can find these tywo, grab 'em!

3. Beginning Oracle Programming
by Sean Dillon, et al (Paperback - March 2002) Avg. Customer Rating:

4. Expert One on One Oracle
by Thomas Kyte (Paperback - June 2001)
Avg. Customer Rating: Received on Tue Jul 08 2003 - 19:04:49 CDT