Re: Oracle newbie questions

es330td wrote:
> I am a 14 year SQL Server DBA/developer. My company has a web based
> enterprise application we license to clients and up until they have
> all used SQL Server backends. We have an RFP on the table to license
> the software to a new client but they want to use Oracle 11g as their
> datastore. In addition to MSSQL, I've done development/design work in
> the past on Informix and DB2 so adapting to a new RDBMS should be
> straightforward. That said, I am going to have to convert a number of
> stored procedure from Transact SQL and have never written anything in
> PL/SQL. I have about a month to get the application up and running on
> Oracle. (Note that 95% of the logic is in the webpages and only
> limited stored procedure are used throughout the site.)
>
> I went to oracle.com and registered and then downloaded Oracle
> Database 11g Release 1, Oracle Database 11g Release 1 Client and
> Oracle Database 11g Examples
>
> Oracle appears to have an installation guide to get me started (IT is
> configuring a clean W2K3 install for me) but I'm sure I am going to
> need some reference materials for Oracle, especially PL/SQL. If
> anyone know of any books they like they can recommened I would
> appreciate it.
>
> This system will be W2K3 and Oracle 11g
>

Apart from Oracle's own documentation, which is excellent and free, but can be a bit difficult to wade though at times, Fuerstein is always a reasonable bet. Personally I don't like his style much, but the content is fine.

I suspect though, that the biggest difficulty you will have is in accepting that TSQL doesn't "translate" well to PL/SQL, nor vice versa. Something of a rethink is always needed. Word of warning: beware in particular the select into or select first row when there is no data found.

Good luck, however. If you have a month for coding and the application is anything other than trivial in its use of the database, I hope the project manager has allowed two or three months for testing.

Palooka Received on Thu Aug 28 2008 - 16:35:50 CDT