Re: good sources for tuning info

"Howard J. Rogers" <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au> wrote in message news:<hjrua.31004$1s1.456212_at_newsfeeds.bigpond.com>...

> Indeed, steer well clear of basically anything published by Oracle Press.
> They don't vet their stuff very carefully before it hits the street (which
> is why their 10i book will probably be on the shelves two hours after 10i
> Release 1 is released).
>
> Thomas Kyte is authorative. Guy's book is practically definitive (as is
> Thomas Kyte's Expert One on One). But the plain fact is that there are very,
> very few good tuning books out there, largely because the market has been
> cornered by the "well-known" authors. If you're busy actually researching
> the subject, it's hard to find time to write about it. Those who write about
> it *tend* to be those who don't research it. Kyte, Lewis and Harrison are
> glorious exceptions to the rule.
>
> Regards
> HJR
You are exactly 100% correct here.

But.

I have to point out, those of us who are in the trenches often find the rushed-out, unvetted books quite useful, if sometimes only to try things and see how wrong they are. At least they are concise and available, vs. wading through a lot of chaff on usenet, metalink, etc.  I've often found them useful for defining a problem in terms that Oracle support or usenet can understand. Yes, I have a lot of books that wind up sitting on the shelf unused, but it was difficult to predict which those would be at the time I bought them. So can you really make such a prediction now? (aside from the specific person in the part of your post I clipped, of course). I certainly found Loney and Velpuri useful in their time, even if I disagreed with some few things. And that is where I wonder if a broad statement against Oracle Press is overgeneralizing from a few bad examples. As for Niemec et al, they are supplying a market with high entry barriers (one of which is your comment about researching and time to write) - but one would think if they are so bad, they would eventually be undercut by someone superior, right? To me it appears they've taken over IOUGA because no one else has any desire to do such things. I know I won't write a book on spec, but if someone wants to pay me... :-)

In the US, there is a small partial tax allowance for buying job-oriented books BTW.

jg

--
@home.com is bogus.
No relation to http://www.55dsl.com/