Oracle8i: A Beginner's Guide

Rating:
Summary: I don't know what these people are thinking...
Review: All I can say is this book is great to get a person up to speed with Oracle products. The portion of the book explaining all the parts that make up the Oracle package and the installation are worth the price alone.

Rating:
Summary: Will not help you create your first Oracle Database...
Review: I am an absolute beginner in Oracle, and I was looking for a book that will show me step-by-step how to create and administer an Oracle database. This book will give you a little idea how to administer an Oracle database alright, but it is assuming you already have a database to administer!... Gladly, I just borrowed this book. Now I understand why the guy who lent it wasn't very happy with his purchase.

Rating:
Summary: Will not help you create your first Oracle Database...
Review: I am an absolute beginner in Oracle, and I was looking for a book that will show me step-by-step how to create and administer an Oracle database. This book will give you a little idea how to administer an Oracle database alright, but it is assuming you already have a database to administer!... Gladly, I just borrowed this book. Now I understand why the guy who lent it wasn't very happy with his purchase.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste you time and money
Review: I am totaly novice in Oracle DBA programing. When I bought this book I thought it would be a good place to start. Well, I was completely dissapointed. This book is neither for beginers nor for some who knows basic DBA programming. Today I returned it to the bookstore.

Rating:
Summary: Unorganized, poorly written.
Review: I found this books useless. There is much better books out there, even if you are a new beginner. In this book there is not any word about Java infrastructure of Oracle 8i, which is the main difference between Oracle 8i and Oracle 8. On the other hand, it tries to explain you some java related tools. No figures, charts or graphis of any sort to make the understanding easier. I could not find any correlation about how the authors organized the chapters and the chapters' contents. The author's style is very irratating as he continously praises Oracle. Oracle this, Oracle that..etc, without giving a solid information. Shortly this books is bad and do not waste your money. You can find better information in Oracle white papers or documentations which are free at technet.oracle.com and at oracle web site.

If you are a new beginner, buy dummies series. Dan Hotka's Oracle Unleashed book is also very good for ever level of readers.

Rating:
Summary: It does not help Oracle beginners
Review: I'm an Biz/IT consultant trying to pick up Oracle 8i from scratch. I think the so-called "beginner" aspect stems from the fact that it tries to explain very basic IT terminologies such as Intranet, Internet, client, server, TCP/IP etc at the beginning of each chapter. I find most of the explanations quite appauling though.

I think the author should devote more time illustrating data modeling terminologies such as tablespace, schema, dropping of database, mounting etc... I find no explanations to these.

The author also spend much time blowing whistle for Oracle and write about Oracle being the database of the future, and what powerful features it has. Lots of big words used, but no examples nor illustration of how they can be done. It's frustrating to waste time reading these.

In conclusion, I find that this is a very huge book with little substance and poor organization. I've read it for days but don't seem to gain much from it. I'm looking for another book to buy, that explains why I'm in here.

Rating:
Summary: Why buy this one?
Review: It's not complete enough for beginner of installation or utilisation. But it may be usefull to those who wants to learn about Oracle 8i, but who does'nt use it. I could see my boss reading it...

Rating:
Summary: I don't know what these people are thinking...
Review: This book is great for total beginners who have little to no experience with networks and databases. If you are looking for a general reference book, the book will be sufficient for basic stuff. For more complicated things like writing subqueries, inner joins, outer joins, stored procedures, creating data models and database administration, you should get a dedicated book. For professionals who want a good general reference book, a general purpose database administration book is a better bet. If you're used to GUI database administration, then get a good PLSQL book instead. There's no substitute for detailed knowledge and expertise with SQL and command line.

Rating:
Summary: Jack of all trades
Review: This book tries to cover everything about Oracle 8i all in one shot. There is so much to learn about Oracle that such a book would be immense. Even though it has "A Beginner's Guide" in the title, there is not enough substance to teach a new user nor is there enough to satisfy an experienced user. So it befits the title "Jack of all trades. Master of none". It would be better to spend your money on several more focused books than on this very blurry plate of spaghetti .

Rating:
Summary: Jack of all trades
Review: This book tries to cover everything about Oracle 8i all in one shot. There is so much to learn about Oracle that such a book would be immense. Even though it has "A Beginner's Guide" in the title, there is not enough substance to teach a new user nor is there enough to satisfy an experienced user. So it befits the title "Jack of all trades. Master of none". It would be better to spend your money on several more focused books than on this very blurry plate of spaghetti .