Re: Which Oracle books to buy

> "Kari Laine" <kari.laine_at_dnainternet.net> wrote in message
> news:3f843d88$1_at_news.dnainternet.net...
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I am starting to learn Oracle. Administration and also programming. I
plan
> > to learn how to use ADO with Oracle and I think there is also an oracle
> way
> > to access (CLI). Anyway I have budgeted to buy 4-5 books and now I would
> > like to get the best ones. I don't want the ones which practically only
> > duplicate the product manuals.
> >
> > I once read an Oracle book in which were also examples how to write
stored
> > procs with Java(tm). It was on Linux env. I can't recall the title
> anymore.
> >
> > Please recommend.
> >
> > Best Regards
> > Kari
> >
> >
>
> "Randy Harris" <randy_at_SpamFree.com> wrote in message
news:DxYgb.11$_v.12553_at_newssvr28.news.prodigy.com...
> Kari, I have a book that I simply can't recommend strongly enough if you
> plan to use VB with Oracle. It has superb discussions of relational
theory,
> database design, Oracle architecture, SQL, PL/SQL, application interface
and
> comparison of ADO with other libraries. The only negative is that the
copy
> that I have (dog-eared and pages falling out) is a bit dated, so it
doesn't
> go into some of the newer features of Oracle. I don't know whether a newer
> edition is available or not.
>
> Oracle Programming with Visual Basic
> Nick Snowden
> Sybex
> ISBN: 0-7821-2322-8
One minor problem I have with that book idea- ADO/Oracle isn't just a VB thing. For that matter, ADO isn't an Oracle thing! ADO is the same everywhere. You'll have access to ADO command, recordset, connection, etc objects in any of the .NET languages- not just VB. And you can use the ADO objects with any database- even text files. Don't concentrate on learning ADO with Oracle. Just learn ADO. I hope that makes sense- ADO works everywhere. If you can understand how ADO works, you'll be able to pair it with any database you like. In fact, most ADO books start off with using Microsoft Access (ugh!) as a database. (And I'm sure you know this, but never use MS Access for anything remotely serious in the business world!) You might better be paired with a couple Oracle-specific books, and one ADO-intensive book. If a book talks about ADO with C#, so be it! You'll be able to apply it to VB without any difficulty! ADO is ADO, anywhere it appears.

Keep this in mind: Stay away from pre-made VB controls such as the data grid. Yes, the grid is fun and quick- but it's in no way useful. At the heart of the grid is an ADO connection object, a recordset object, and -maybe- a command object. Learn those three objects first. Working with the grid is a waste of time, and could very well be a barrier to learning ADO properly.

My ADO collection is two books; both of which are outdated. First was "Programming ADO" by Microsoft. Second was "Serious ADO: Universal Data Access with Visual Basic" by Robert McDonald. (Amazon.com still shows it as available.). They're outdated simply because ADO.NET is out; these books were from Visual Studio 6.0 days. While most things in ADO have stayed the same into ADO.NET, you shouldn't start yourself off from 3 years ago. Hint: Ebay is a good source for slightly outdated books on the cheap. I'd say your best bet would be to pick up an ADO.NET book by Microsoft Press at your local http://www.bn.com . I'm pretty fond of the Microsoft Press books, as you can tell. :) In fact, I just stumbled across this site which might help you: http://www.dotnetbooks.com/

Like Randy said, you should have a knowledge of database design, and Oracle architecture. For Oracle, look at the Oracle Press books. Pick up the Oracle 9i Beginner's Guide (by Michael Abbey), and the Oracle 9i DBA Handbook (Kevin Loney). And you Must buy "Oracle 9i: The Complete Reference" by Kevin Loney! That will go further into SQL then the Beginner's Guide does- and you need a good knowledge of SQL to do anything with a database! My 7.3 Complete Reference has the most wear of any of my books; it was what I used back in 1996 to learn SQL. Flip through all 3 of these at the bookstore; I have a feeling you might eliminate the DBA Handbook for now (since it goes in-depth into things that the other two books will already cover.) Also do a google.com search for "Oracle Myths", because not all of the information regarding architechture in those books (or ANY Oracle book!!) is true anymore- it's stuff that's been taken as fact since the early versions of Oracle and the earlier computer technologies. One example of a famous myth is "keep your indexes and tables on separate disks". For PL/SQL, nothing beats the Oracle documents from http://otn.oracle.com .

Although; on second thought, you said you're starting to learn programming? Maybe you don't want an all-out technical book on ADO as your primary source. I remember a few years ago there were books at Barnes & Noble with titles like "Visual Learning", meaning, they showed screen shots of every step. Not a technical resource by any means, but it might be helpful to a beginning programmer. Use google.com to search for programming website such as http://www.devarticles.com/ . Also don't forget the great free documents at http://msdn.microsoft.com !

Here's two such parts of the MSDN resource for you.

First is ADO.NET - stay current! Non-.NET ended in 2001. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/adonetanchor.asp And while you stay with current technology, avoid ODBC drivers- stick with OLE DB Providers. Use ODBC only as a last resort.

Second is data access, in general:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/nhp/Default.asp?contentid=28001860&frame=true Avoid DAO and RDO topics; they're purely historical, and they were horrible in VB4.0.

Practice first with using SQL*Plus to get the information you want out of Oracle. Once you have your SQL query written, bring that into ADO.

Good luck!

-Thomas Received on Thu Oct 09 2003 - 14:35:08 CDT