Sebastopol, CA--Developers and DBAs have several choices when it comes to writing software against an Oracle database. They can use Java and JDBC, Visual Basic and ODBC, or they can go with Delphi, C++, or many other options. "You will find, however, that it's easier to write highly efficient code to access the Oracle database in PL/SQL than it is in any other language," insists Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming (Fourth Edition, O'Reilly, US $64.95). "In fact, Oracle developers who want to be successful in the 21st century must learn to use PL/SQL to full advantage."
Considered the world's leading expert on PL/SQL--the procedural language embedded in nearly every Oracle product--Feuerstein led a team of authors, including consultant Bill Pribyl, to write the new edition of this popular book. For the past ten years, Oracle PL/SQL Programming has tracked the increasing sophistication of Oracle's programming language, which ensures that developers can stay entirely within the OS-independent Oracle environment to write efficient, maintainable code for their applications.
"Developers need to know the basic building blocks of PL/SQL, but they also need to learn by example so they can avoid some of the trial and error," Feuerstein says. "As with any programming language, PL/SQL has a right way and many wrong ways to handle just about any task. Oracle's reference manuals may describe all the features of PL/SQL, but they don't tell you how to apply the technology. In this book, we venture beyond the basics to the far reaches of the language, finding non-standard ways that a particular feature can be tweaked to achieve a desired result."
The fourth edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming describes the features and capabilities of PL/SQL up through Oracle Database 10g, the version released this past summer. Packed with language syntax, best practices, recommendations, and plenty of code examples, the book offers a comprehensive update on new features such as the PL/SQL optimizing compiler, conditional compilation, compile-time warnings, regular expressions, and more. New chapters cover security, I/O (file, email, and web), and guidance on how to build globalized and localized PL/SQL-based applications.
"After developers become familiar with, and learn how to use, the language's ever-expanding set of features, they then must learn how to put these constructs together to build complex applications," Feuerstein explains. "That's what this book aims to help them do.
"Developers don't spend their days and nights writing PL/SQL modules so that they can rise to a higher plane of existence," Feuerstein adds. "This book helps them tackle real-world problems, the kinds of issues they face on a daily basis. There is more information than ever before, but we managed to present it without losing that 'trademark' sense of humor and conversational tone that readers have told us for years make the book readable, understandable and highly useful."
Praise for the previous edition:
"Over the years, the brilliantly written book Oracle PL/SQL Programming has become the 'PL/SQL bible' for developers around the world. This third edition is the best of them all. Steven Feuerstein and Bill Pribyl cover PL/SQL completely, including all the new Oracle9i features of PL/SQL, and provide even more real-world examples. This is a book that belongs in the library of every serious Oracle application developer."
--Ken Jacobs, Vice-President, Product Strategy, Server Technologies, Oracle Corporation
Further reviews of Oracle Pl/SQL Programming can be found here.
Additional Resources:
- Chapter 20, "Managing PL/SQL Code"
- More information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bios, and samples
- A cover graphic in JPEG format
Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Fourth Edition
Steven Feuerstein and Bill Pribyl
ISBN: 0-596-00977-1, 1198 pages, $64.95 US, $90.95 CA
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