Book Review: Murach’s Oracle SQL and PL/SQL
By Eric Mortensen
Joel Murach’s Oracle SQL and PL/SQL book is written to teach application developers the SQL and PL/SQL skills they need to when interfacing with an Oracle database. The author writes in the books preface that this book was written to help developers know how to efficiently and effectively interface with an Oracle database; teach them standard SQL skills; and to serve as a good first book for those wanting to become a DBA. I feel that this book effectively covers each of those purposes. When you first open this book you will notice that the books layout is different then most other Oracle reference books. This is due to the unique layout that is common over all Murach books. Their books use what they call a “Paired Pages” layout. The right page of the book contains information about essential syntax, examples, and guidelines. This page is designed so that anyone can quickly scan the page and learn the essentials. The left page expands on the right page by providing more detailed information, perspective, and extra explanation. It is on the left page where the detailed descriptions are placed that helps the developer learn the important information then need. This book gives general introductions to many different topics Application developers need to know. This include an introduction to basic application structure; how to design a database; normalization rules; how to create tables, indexes, and sequences; how to create views; how to manage database security; essential PL/SQL skills; how to work with timestamps, intervals, and large objects; and many other important topics. But where this books shines is in its coverage of the general SQL data manipulation language commands of INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and especially the SELECT command. This book is worth its cost just for its detailed and complete description of the SQL SELECT statement. The book takes 4 chapters (129 pages) to cover all aspects of the SELECT statement. Even the simplest of topics would usually get a complete “Paired Page” discussion (e.g. There is a whole “Paired Page” discussion on how to name columns in the result clause of a SELECT statement). I have not found any other book, including Oracle’s own documentation, which more completely describes the how to use SELECT statement.
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Unfortunately, this book does not cover every subject a new developer needs to know about. This book did not contain information on how to use the MERGE command, Materialized Views, or how indexes can be used to optimize queries. Of these topics not describing how to use the SQL MERGE command is the most important thing missing in this book. I also wish that the author had included a listing of references at the end of each of the books sections where the reader could go to learn more about the subject matter the book had just discussed. Overall, I feel that the author truly created a great reference book on the basics of interfacing with an Oracle database. I think the book would become an often-referenced book in anyone’s technical library of books.
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