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Rating: 
Summary: Nice, compact, but it really needs an index!
Review: A good sidekick for when you have a mental lapse, unfortunately they seem to have forgot to print the index.
This book will not replace any other PL/SQL book you have (or should have) in your tech library, but is great to have around on your desk instead of the usual 4,000 pages tomes.
Rating:
Summary: All it needs is an Index!
Review: An index would make this pocket reference 5 stars. The TOC - (Table of Contents) is helpful but an Index would be better in addition to the TOC.Gio
Rating: 
Summary: Only "OK"
Review: I've worked with Oracle for quite a while, and I've tinkered with PL/SQL, triggers, etc. on and off during the time that I used Oracle. Recently, I needed to write a really simple PL/SQL program to assist in doing a backfill. I bought this book expecting to pluck out details quickly for writing this program. Unfortunately, there was no index, and the table of contents was a little too high-level to help you find specific information. Finally, once you locate an appropriate section, the text is terse and the examples are quite basic. I concede that I probably should've bought "Oracle PL/SQL Language" the book for which this is a reference for my particular need. Just beware, however, that this book is solely a reference, and is hard to use unless you already know PL/SQL.
Rating: 
Summary: Great pocket reference, 2nd edition WITH INDEX now
Review: This small booklet "ORACLE PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference" in this new 2nd edition is exactly what you need as PL/SQL (PL/SQL is the ORACLE procedural language extension of SQL) programmer (and is even more important for casual PL/SQL programmer). "ORACLE PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference" assumes that you are running at least ORACLE 8i and it covers ORACLE 9i as well (ORACLE 9i features are marked as such). The content and coverage of the book is very good from my perspective. Even the more exotic features that I just can't remember, like e.g. the AUTHID stuff for PL/SQL procedures, are covered in this book. Even if you do not remember the exact keyword to look something up in the index, the book is still small enough to brose over every page in a couple of minutes to find your solution. All of the ORACLE 9i features (that I know of) are explained like e.g. "bulk binds" (cool PL/SQL performance feature). The language and the new index are very good. Even though this is a relatively small book, there are examples for almost every topic covered (although not big ones). This is NOT the right book to learn PL/SQL and it will not teach you any SQL. If you want to learn PL/SQL, I recommend the other books (by the same authors) from O'Reilly that are all VERY good.
Rating:
Summary: Great pocket reference, 2nd edition WITH INDEX now
Review: This small booklet "ORACLE PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference" in this new 2nd edition is exactly what you need as PL/SQL (PL/SQL is the ORACLE procedural language extension of SQL) programmer (and is even more important for casual PL/SQL programmer). "ORACLE PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference" assumes that you are running at least ORACLE 8i and it covers ORACLE 9i as well (ORACLE 9i features are marked as such). The content and coverage of the book is very good from my perspective. Even the more exotic features that I just can't remember, like e.g. the AUTHID stuff for PL/SQL procedures, are covered in this book. Even if you do not remember the exact keyword to look something up in the index, the book is still small enough to brose over every page in a couple of minutes to find your solution. All of the ORACLE 9i features (that I know of) are explained like e.g. "bulk binds" (cool PL/SQL performance feature). The language and the new index are very good. Even though this is a relatively small book, there are examples for almost every topic covered (although not big ones). This is NOT the right book to learn PL/SQL and it will not teach you any SQL. If you want to learn PL/SQL, I recommend the other books (by the same authors) from O'Reilly that are all VERY good.
Rating: 
Summary: anO'REILLY flop
Review: Where's the index?? A REFERENCE is something you pick up to find a particular needed peice of information. Without an index you have to scan everywhere trying to find what you are looking for. What a waste of time! Dont' even waste the 10 bucks for this piece of junk...
Rating:
Summary: anO'REILLY flop
Review: Where's the index?? A REFERENCE is something you pick up to find a particular needed peice of information. Without an index you have to scan everywhere trying to find what you are looking for. What a waste of time! Dont' even waste the 10 bucks for this piece of junk...
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