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Anonymous
Posted Tue Oct 04 00:00:00 EDT 2005
Kyte is a veteran Oracle expert, and this is his latest tome on good practices when using Oracle. He discusses the most recent versions 9i and 10g. The book is geared to both DBAs and developers using Oracle. It essentially dives straight into detailed prescriptions that should improve your coding. Kyte points out that some developers want to treat their choice of database as a black box. Sticking instead to generic SQL statements that do not assume specifics about that database. He strongly suggests that this is badly misinformed. Different databases have different implementations. Hence, having SQL code cognizant of Oracle lets you take advantage of Oracle's strengths. After all, he points out, you paid plenty for that Oracle license! Chapter 10 on database tables was especially interesting. While you might think a table is a table, Oracle defines 9 major table types. Each addressing an important need. Of these, the object table seems to be Oracle's response to the rise of competing object oriented databases. A nifty way to combine relational and object properties and make it compatible with Oracle's main effort. To the extent that he compares Oracle code with other databases, it seems to be mostly with Microsoft's SQL Server. While IBM's DB2 gets barely a mention. And apparently none at all for the free alternatives of MySQL or Postgresql. But, typically, books on those often do likewise. There is something stated in the book that I cannot let pass unremarked. It asserts that with Oracle, you need to know how it works, but you don't need 'to know everything inside or out'. Whereas, it goes on to claim, 'When programming in C or Java, you do need to know everything inside and out, and these are huge languages'. Look, for C, this is demonstrably false. C is a small language, in comparison with C++, Java or C#. C has no graphics and no object oriented ability. The classic text on C, by Kernighan and Ritchie, is only 274 pages. While Kyte's book itself states that the Oracle documentation is some 10 000 to 20 000 pages. So which is smaller, C or Oracle? As for Java, by now the Java Standard Edition does come with many classes. Maybe, if you had to write explanatory text for all those, it might approach the 10 000 pages for Oracle. But just as the book says that you do not need to know Oracle comprehensively, so too is this true for Java. How many of you Java programmers really know all those base classes? The book is on solid ground when it sticks to the matter at hand, Oracle. But comments like the above on C and Java can somewhat undermine its efficacy.
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More About This Textbook
Overview
This is a defining book on the Oracle database for any developer ordatabase administratorwho works with Oracle-driven database applications. Tom Kytehas a simple philosophy: you can treat Oracle as a black box and just stick data into it or you can understand how it works and exploit it as a powerful computing environment. If you choose the latter, then you will find that there are few information management problems that you cannot solve quickly and elegantly.
Expert Oracle Database Architecture is the first of a three-book series that completely explores and defines the Oracle database. It covers all of the most important Oracle architecture features, including:
Each feature is taught in a proof-by-example manner, not only discussing what it is, but also how it works, how to implement software using it, and the common pitfalls associated with it.
This fully revised edition covers both the 9i and 10g versions. It also comes with a CD containing a searchable PDF of the 8i version of the book.
Tom has fully revised and expanded the architecture-related sections from Expert One-on-One Oracle (a searchable PDF of which is included on the CD accompanying this book), and added substantial new material. He focuses solely on 9i and 10g architecture in this book and refers to the CD for 8i-specific details. The number of changes will surprise you.
In summary, this book provides a one-stop resource containing deep wisdom on the design, development and administration of Oracle applications, written by one of the world's foremost Oracle experts, Thomas Kyte.
Editorial Reviews
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewIn Tom Kyte’s words, “a development team needs at its heart a core of database-savvy developers who are responsible for ensuring the database logic is sound and the system is built to perform from day one.” Kyte’s written Expert Oracle Database Architecture to help you become one of those elite Oracle developers.
You may recognize Kyte as the author of Oracle Magazine’s indispensable online column, “Ask Tom.” Years ago, he wrote Expert One-on-One Oracle, a book that achieved the impossible: unanimous raves. This book contains some architecture-related text from that classic, extensively updated and expanded for Oracle 10g and 9i.
Kyte takes you deep inside Oracle’s architecture, illuminating all you need to know to make optimal use of files, memory structures, processes, locking, latching, concurrency controls, transactions, undo/redo, tables, indexes, datatypes, partitioning, parallel execution, and more.
It’s all informed by Kyte’s coherent development philosophy: First, if it can be done in the database, do it there: That gives you the flexibility to deploy practically anywhere. If possible, do it in a single SQL statement. If not, use PL/SQL. If that doesn’t work, use Java stored procedures. Worst case, use a C external procedure. If none of those options work, are you sure you really need to do it?
Kyte is currently evolving additional coverage from Expert One-on-One Oracle into another new book, Expert Oracle Programming. In the meantime, if you want to read Kyte’s classic in its original form, just buy Expert Oracle Database Architecture. You’ll get it on CD-ROM as a free bonus. Bill Camarda, from the November 2005 Read Only
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Meet the Author
Tom Kyte is the same "Ask Tom" whose column appears in Oracle Magazine, where he answers questions about the Oracle database and tools that developers and database administrators struggle with every day.
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