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Summary: The BEST general reference Oracle book on the market
Review: While other books may be better for DBAs, Oracle 8 : The Complete Reference is hands-down the best book for Oracle developers. The chapters are logically organized, and the book takes you through the beginnings of SQL straight through PL/SQL and advanced features specific to Oracle. As a developer, this book sits at my right hand side whenever I have an Oracle question.Highly recommended for beginner to intermediate users.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book for quick reference
Review: Extensively covered the SQLPLUS environment and good exapmles for generating reports at SQLPLUS prompt. Needs more coverage on PL/SQL programming and should be a handy tool for application developers also.
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Summary: Great for beginners or advanced users
Review: I found this book to be a great help when I was first learning Oracle, and now that I am more experienced I still refer to it. The reference material at the end is really useful but doesn't dominate the book. The bulk of the book deals with the Oracle features in SQL and PL/SQL and how to use them best. It's the most dog-eared book I own.
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Summary: Badly organized, No in-depth knowledge
Review: I have a feeling that most of the oracle books from Oracle Press sucks. They try to cover everything, but unfortunately not in details, and only for beginners. Although I like Kevin Loney, I love his Oracle DBA 7.3, I don't like this. I hope Oracle Press can have more real books for professionals. Ones that can be referenced in the real world.
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Summary: Disappointed...
Review: I would not consider this a complete reference by any stretch of the imagination. As I am currently serving as chief architect of a major internet portal, I purchased this book blindly in hopes of learning about Oracle. I was interested in advanced topics such as Oracle Parellel Server and Advanced Replication for which this book did not have. It is a rehash of existing manuals. Do not waste your money on this book.
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Summary: Much better than other Oracle Documentation
Review: This manual is great for beginners, although being familiar with SQL helps. It is well written, and things are divided into easy-to-understand chapters. Once you are done with it, you can go for more specific manuals, like Pro C/C++ and DBA stuff.
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Summary: It's THE reference book I use
Review: I have bought several technical reference books over the years. This one covers Oracle like no other. I use it everyday - when I'm not fighting off co-workers to see it!
Rating:
Summary: Should be better
Review: As with most other books from Oracle Press, this reference is incomplete and poorly organized. There's quite a bit of useful stuff in here, but most of the topics discussed are never delved into great detail--so it's very good for an overview, but if you actually want to get things working, you'll need to go elsewhere. I find the organization to be very strange.
Rating: 
Summary: It is an oracle developer's reference, not a complete one
Review: THis is a very convenient reference for beginers and intermmediate level Oracle Developers. However, it is far from sufficient for advanced Developers, not nentioning DBAs. It does not provide any info on performance tuning, which is critical for advanced level. The title is misleading in that it is neither comprehensive, nor goes in depth on some subjects, such as PL. If you want to be a qualified Oracle developer, this book is not sufficient, but definitely put you on road and running.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is a really good book if you are an application developer. It covers SQL*plus for report building very well. The examples are excellent and gives you an idea how to build creative reports. The chapters on SQL are equally as good. The examples are real life based and you will learn how to develop complex queries--the right way. This books also covers some basic security, good for applications developers that are in the process of developing an application. I highly recomend this book. You will gain a lot if you buy this book for the right reasons, DBA's might want to buy another book unless you are new to oracle. This is a good starting book for anyone and still good for anyone with previous experience.
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