However excellent they are, most computer books are inherently passive--readers simply take in text without having any opportunity to react to it.
The Oracle PL/SQL Developer's Workbook is a different kind of animal! It's designed to engage you actively, to get you solving programming problems immediately, and to help you apply what you've learned about PL/SQL--and in the process deepen your knowledge of the language. By tackling the exercises in this workbook, you'll find yourself moving more rapidly along the learning curve to join the growing ranks of PL/SQL experts.
The Oracle PL/SQL Developer's Workbook is a companion to Steven Feuerstein's bestselling
Oracle PL/SQL Programming and his other PL/SQL books from O'Reilly. It contains a carefully constructed set of problems and solutions that will test your language skills and help you become a better developer--both with PL/SQL and with other languages. Exercises are provided at three levels: beginner, intermediate, and expert. The workbook exercises cover all the major features of PL/SQL, including those new to Oracle8i (e.g., Java and web features, autonomous transactions, and bulk binds).
You'll find chapters on:
- Basic language elements--variables, naming, loops, conditional and sequential control, exception handling, and records.
- Data structures--index-by tables, nested tables, variables arrays (VARRAYs), and object technology.
- Database interaction--cursors, DML and transaction management, cursor variables, and native dynamic SQL
- Program construction--procedures, functions, blocks, packages, database triggers, and calling PL/SQL functions in SQL.
- Built-in functionality--the character, date, conversion, numeric, and miscellaneous functions, and the DBMS_SQL, DBMS_PIPE, DBMS_OUTPUT, UTL_FILE, and DBMS_JOB built-in packages.
- Miscellaneous topics--using Java with PL/SQL, external programs, PL/SQL web development, tuning PL/SQL, and PL/SQL for DBAs.
Steven Feuerstein is considered one of the world's leading experts on the Oracle PL/SQL language. He is the author or coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices, Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features, Oracle PL/SQL Developer's Workbook, Oracle Built-in Packages, Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages, and several pocket reference books (all from O'Reilly & Associates). Steven is a Senior Technology Advisor with Quest Software, has been developing software since 1980, and worked for Oracle Corporation from 1987 to 1992.
Andrew Odewahn is a writer and software entrepreneur. With an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business, he has an exceptional ability to find creative yet practical solutions to real-life business problems. The author of Oracle Web Applications (O'Reilly, 1999) and co-author of Oracle PL/SQL Workbook (O'Reilly, 2000), Andrew specializes in database technology. While not writing or designing software, he and his wife travel whenever they can. Their adventures include riding Lipizzaner stallions at a Slovenian casino, speeding down an alpine slide deep in the jungles of Vietnam, hiking (and riding the occasional ski lift!) across the Swiss Alps, hosteling in a Soviet-era sanitarium, and circumnavigating New Zealand's "Mount Doom." They currently live in Maine.
