Re: Reviews of Dan Tow's "SQL Tuning"?
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:47:33 -0000
Message-ID: <_76dnTPdOsC66fbUnZ2dneKdnZzinZ2d_at_bt.com>
"Steve Howard" <stevedhoward_at_gmail.com> wrote in message news:94f69b7b-7297-400f-9c12-d1970ff2c5fb_at_p36g2000prp.googlegroups.com...
> Hi All,
>
> My apologies if this should have gone in CDOM, but it seemed relevant
> here.
>
> I have seen several posts that mention this book as part of a reply,
> but I wanted to get a separate thread for it in case anyone has a
> string opinion on it one way or the other.
>
> http://www.amazon.com/SQL-Tuning-Dan-Tow/dp/0596005733/ref=pd_sim_b_6
>
> It seems pretty generic, so I wonder if it has value for an oracle
> specific user? It was printed in 2003, so is the methodology still
> relevant, especially for Oracle?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve
>
Sorry about any abortive attempts to post - if they appear.
Dan Tow's book is one of the few I've bothered to buy.
I don't agree with every detail of what he says, but the important point he makes is that you can think about the data and work out a sensible path through the data.
As Mark pointed out, there's a strong bias towards making everything nested loops - which I think is inappropriate; but when compared to the huge benefit of putting across the message that you have to work the numbers out (at least approximately) that's a minor irritation.
In a way, his book mirrors mine quite nicely. He says a lot about "this is what you should know about the data", and I say "this is what the optimizer believes about the data". So my book tells you why Oracle didn't do what Dan's book tells you is the appropriate path. (And my book also tells you how you can share your information with the optimizer so that it does do what Dan's book says it should).
-- Regards Jonathan Lewis http://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com Author: Cost Based Oracle: Fundamentals http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/cbo_book/ind_book.html The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.htmlReceived on Mon Jan 12 2009 - 10:47:33 CST