Re: Advise needed: Can I use/learn Oracle quickly?

Hi Erwin,

Erwin Moller schrieb:
> Hi group!
>
> This is my situation: I offered a few friends who work in some office
> (financial department) to help them out.
> They have to start using a datawarehouse now, but seriously lack basic SQL
> knowledge, which is a problem because they actually have to check the
> reliability of that data (Planning & Control devision).
>
> So I offered them to teach them some basics. Just a short hands-on course
> with some datatypes, tabledesign, prim. keys, foreign keys, etc.
> Nothing fancy.
>
> They were all very happy, but then the following problem arose: They want me
> to do it on an Oracle database because all their software runs on that.
>
> The problem is I never worked with Oracle before besides 5 minutes on SQL*
> years ago.
> But I am experienced with databasedesign/usage but not on Oracle.
>
> my background:
> PostgeSQL 7.X : I know Postgresql quite well and worked with that for years
> happily.
> M$ SQL Server (7 I think)
> MySQL
> Access (If you can call that a database)
> and a few more obscure perl/php libs for flatfile database.
>
> My question (you guessed):
> How well equiped I am to teach some basics on SQL when I use Oracle?
> I heard PostgreSQL is a little similar to Oracle. Is that true? (That would
> make me happy.)
> What do I need to create a few tables?
> Is there some visual GUI to Oracle database? (I only know commandline SQL*)
> What websites are good for a quickstart?
> Can I download some evaluationversion for free? (I have access to Linux
> Redhat8 and NT4 and Windows2000 Professional)
>
> I hope somebody can get me ontrack with this.
>
> I know how annoying it can be when somebody drops into a newsgroup with
> questions like this (happens to me all the time in c.l.java.*), so please
> forgive me for that. :-)
>
> Thank a lot for your time!
>
> Regards,
> Erwin Moller

From my point of view Oracle is the best RDBMS on the market - and, if you want to use it in an adequate manner, the most difficult to learn.

Please have have a look on their web site at: 1. The concepts manual under (access requires free registration) http://otn.oracle.com/pls/db10g/db10g.to_pdf?pathname=server.101%2Fb10743.pdf&remark=portal+%28Getting+Started%29

2. Their education program under http://education.oracle.com The education path for a data warehouse developer takes near by 5 weeks of full time courses. At this point you don't know much of PL/SQL and other very important features of Oracle and you don't have any experience with it.

The effort to learn Oracle requires a decision. Ask yourself: Do you want to user Oracle primarily for your future projects? If you answer with 'Yes' it is worth the effort. If 'No' is your answer, let it be and hire people with good Oracle knowledge.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards
Michael Gast
SEPP MED GmbH

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