ISBN:0782123228Amazon.com
Aimed at programmers who are familiar with Visual Basic and who have been exposed to Oracle, this instructional text covers the popular Oracle/Visual Basic client/server combination from beginning to end. The book opens with a lengthy discussion of the unique architecture of Oracle. The author presents the basics of Oracle's components, database administration processes, and database design issues. By the end of this first part, the reader comes away with a solid understanding of Oracle. The second part adequately covers queries and store procedures and introduces the reader to Oracle's PL/SQL.
Next, the author devotes a section to implementing Visual Basic client applications against the Oracle back end. He presents Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), cursors, and object linking and embedding database (OLE-DB) as well as discusses the Microsoft JET engine, remote data objects, and ODBCDirect. All of these architectures are critical to expert database programming in Visual Basic. The book also addresses other client design issues, such as transaction control and error handling.
Oracle Programming wraps up with a section on advanced Oracle techniques that includes Oracle Objects for OLE--otherwise known as OO4O. Generous but concise code examples, smart sidebars on real-world implementation, and plenty of architectural diagrams round out this book. --Stephen Plain/p>
Reviews From AMAZON.COM
A little Misleading
This book is really the vb programmer's guide to Oracle. This is a good general reference but it does not get into depth on visual basic side. THis book would be good for someone with little knowledge of how Oracle works.
Oracle Demystified, Not Just For VB Programmers
Oracle owns the relational database server market and Microsoft owns the desktop market. Visual Basic is the language of choice for the WinTell development world. One would expect dozens of books available to support this paradigm, but there are not.
I recommend this book to everyone who must use Oracle. The first 10 chapters summarize Oracle better then Oracle summarizes Oracle. Snowdon assumes that the reader is familiar with SQL Server, but he does not assume ANY Oracle knowledge. By the time this book was available I had already written two production class programs for Oracle without the benefit of experienced Oracle DBA's to help me. This book would have saved me hours of frustration had it been available.
I have just purchased Dov Trietsch's, "Visual Basic Oracle 8 Programmer's Reference," so I cannot compare the two.
If you are going to survive in an Oracle environment, you will need to learn PL/SQL, Oracle's extended SQL programming language for triggers and stored procedures. Snowdon has an excellent introduction, but the definitive source is Steven Feurerstein's "Oracle PL/SQL Programming" by O'Reilly and Associates. I DO NOT recommend any of the Osborne books on Oracle, even though they are Oracle's vendor of choice. Oracle makes a big chunk of its money in consulting fees and, in my opinion, the Osborne documentation protects that revenue stream.