Learn the How not the WhatThis is an excellent addition to your SQL book library for the very simple reason it teaches you HOW to write SQL queries. Its not a SQL reference book in the sense it doesnt teach you what all the basic functions do, but it does teach you how to write quality SQL i.e. the concepts behinding writing SQL statements.
Useful for newcomers - of little use to Oracle professionalsMy main gripe with this book is the insistance of the authors (and Oracle for that matter) to force the new ANSI join down your throat, it is used in every single join with no examples using the old syantax. On top of this, there is not one actual example of this super new syntax joining more than two tables together, in fact almost all the examples given avoid any serious complexity.
Where the book is useful is perhaps in the introduction of topics which you may be unfamiliar such as XML or if you are a relative newcomer to Oracle.
Good depth, assumes a lot
I bought this book with the aim of extending my own use of SQL, which I have used for 10 years or more. I especially wanted to make more use of Oracle enhancements since I first used SQL. At first I wondered if I would get anything from the book, since it started off with explaining simple select/insert/update statements, but it very quickly got more in-depth. I found the depth to be excellent, but be warned if you are new to SQL: the writers very quickly start using technical terms without explanation, so if you're not already at least marginally confident with SQL, find a basics book first. I will be returning to this book repeatedly, it opened my eyes to so many more features that I'm dying to get to use!
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