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Rating: 
Summary: Good, but declining!
Review: I have several books by Urman. I have both 8i PL/SQL Programming books by Urman, as well as the 2001 edition of the 9i PL/SQL Programming book. The 8i edition of this book is is 978 pages. The 2001 edition of the 9i book is 631. The 9i book has much less content than the 8i book even though more features have been added to Oracle 9i. There is also a large "Advanced" 8i PL/SQL Programming book because the basic book is just not big enough at 978 pages! My conclusion is that while you MUST own this book, the 9i book does not adequately cover PL/SQL programming. Too much is left to the reader to puzzle-out on his own using other books and resources like Metalink or on-line documents. Why the book shrunk since 8i is a real mystery . . .
Rating:
Summary: Good, but declining!
Review: I have several books by Urman. I have both 8i PL/SQL Programming books by Urman, as well as the 2001 edition of the 9i PL/SQL Programming book. The 8i edition of this book is is 978 pages. The 2001 edition of the 9i book is 631. The 9i book has much less content than the 8i book even though more features have been added to Oracle 9i. There is also a large "Advanced" 8i PL/SQL Programming book because the basic book is just not big enough at 978 pages! My conclusion is that while you MUST own this book, the 9i book does not adequately cover PL/SQL programming. Too much is left to the reader to puzzle-out on his own using other books and resources like Metalink or on-line documents. Why the book shrunk since 8i is a real mystery . . .
Rating: 
Summary: Only for newbies
Review: I must say it is not what I expected. Basically, if you know nothing about PL/SQL, that is, the Oracle extension of the SQL, and you need to grasp its general concept in a very short time, this is the book for you. But the subtittle of the book is definitely misleading. When it comes to advanced topics, the book simply copies from the online documentation from Oracle, but only the brief summery. Say, function DECODE, one of the most powful feature in PL/SQL, is covered in half a page! Just the official definition. Nothing to read about. If you bought Oracle 9i The Complete Reference, you'd find a whole chapter devoted to that function. The author didn't do much work with this book. If you're a serious programmer, don't bother with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Honestly, I expected a better book!
Review: I purchased the book having a little knowledge about PL/SQL programming and unfortunately reading this book didn't enhance my specific culture.
Nevertheless I think that it is a good item for novice PL/SQL programmer. They will find it an unvaluable working and training tool.
Finally, in my opinion, the preceding edition was richer in terms of contents and arguments.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent coverage of PL/SQL
Review: I purchased this book knowing nothing about PL/SQL. I read the entire book and worked through most of the examples in a week of dedicated self-training. The material is presented in a logical order. All the examples worked. Although all scripts are provided on the CD that comes with the book, I typed in all examples which helped in learning the material. The only issue I had with some of the examples is the use of the DBMS_OUTPUT package. This package writes the output of some of the examples to the screen. However, it only does so in SQL*Plus or Server Manager. I was using a tool by Quest called TOAD. I compensated for this by sending the output to a temp table provided by the author and then queried the temp table to retrieve the results. It worked just fine. Working through the examples requires the Oracle database, which shouldn't be a problem since anyone can download Oracle for free from Oracle's website. I give the book a big thumbs up! I definitely feel I have the knowledge necessary to go out and write PL/SQL.
Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: This is a pretty decent book with plenty of advanced topics. Other than the fact that not all the advanced topics were covered I'm pretty happy with this edition.
Rating:
Summary: One of the better IT books that I have seen
Review: This is a well written, fast reading book that provides the reader with the information needed but not with the fluff that we do not need. I used this book to pass the Oracle Certification Exan 1Z0-147 : Oracle9i: Program with PL/SQL. If you own this book and 'Oracle PL/SQL' by Steven Feuerstein and Bill Pribyl (published by O'reily), you probably have what you need (for understanding PL/SQL) ... enjoy
Rating:
Summary: One of the better IT books that I have seen
Review: This is a well written, fast reading book that provides the reader with the information needed but not with the fluff that we do not need. I used this book to pass the Oracle Certification Exan 1Z0-147 : Oracle9i: Program with PL/SQL. If you own this book and 'Oracle PL/SQL' by Steven Feuerstein and Bill Pribyl (published by O'reily), you probably have what you need (for understanding PL/SQL) ... enjoy
Rating:
Summary: A very helpful book to pass the exam.
Review: This is, indeed, a great book to pass this exam(1Z0-147). Actually, there is no prescribed book(as of now!!), for this exam. This book fairly covers most of the topics that are specified in the official exam syllabus. However, topics on Large objects are not covered in this book extensively. I suggest to search on google for LOBS(This is how i got some notes on LOBS). This book is good to study functions, procedures, packages, triggers, and some DBMS packages, but it doesn't cover LOBS, managing dependencies. Overall, I can give 4 stars to this book, as it helped me to pass the exam.
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