Re: Interpreting cost on EXPLAIN PLAN

<artmt_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1124308195.166304.230750_at_f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Jonathan Lewis wrote:
>> I hadn't realised that anyone had written
>> a book about the cost based optimizer,
>> although Dan Tow has written a very
>> interesting book about tuning SQL, and
>> a couple of other people have done some
>> pretty good stuff about tuning SQL in the
>> past.
>
> Kim Floss had written _Oracle SQL Tuning & CBO Internals_ which is a
> collection of articles by various authors. Some of it does cover CBO
> internals, but not in depth.
>

I didn't think that one really counted as a book about the cost based optimizer. One of the articles reprinted in it was a light-weight article that I wrote for the Auerbach publication "Oracle Internals" (Editor Don Burleson) a few years ago. I assume he bought the right to publish from Aueurbach.

 My article argued the case that hints were actually orders that had to be obeyed if possible.

According to the extract on Don Burleson's website, Chapter 3 of the book written by Kim Floss starts with my article, preceded by an introduction that includes the lines:

        The problem here is that a hint is more like a suggestion than
        issuing a directive.  The optimizer doesn't have to follow your
        hint if it doesn't want to ...  The basics of the Oracle hints can
        be most easily understood using a series of examples, provided
        by Oracle-SQL Expert, Jonathan Lewis

I don't really understand how Kimberley Floss merited a position as the author when so much of it was other peoples' (old) work. And I don't expect much of the book if the author and editor can't manage to spot such a flat contradiction in the space of about 10 lines.

-- 
Regards

Jonathan Lewis

Now waiting on the publishers:    Cost Based Oracle - Volume 1

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