Chapter 6. Keeping House
Once you get up to speed on the PL/SQL language, you will find that it is actually very easy to write procedures, functions, and scripts (anonymous blocks, usually). You will get all excited about your new-found proficiency. You will write more and more code. You will be in a big hurry (deadlines, enthusiasm, impatience) and soon you will have a body of code that resembles my[1] teenage son's room: a big mess in which he is quite sure he knows where everything is (except, that is, when he needs to find something).
[1] In this section, "my" is Steven talking.
My son's solution is to get really mad and stomp around the house "looking" for the lost item. In reality, he is trying to make enough noise to get his parents to join in the hunt—just so they can quiet him down. It's an effective tactic with a (virtually) only child, but it may not work too well in a corporate environment.
In this chapter, we'll take a look at how you can—and should—keep your PL/SQL house in order with a minimum of noise, fuss, and frustration. You will learn how to:
Organize all the great code you write, whether it's in the database or in files on your computer's operating system
Build and use SQL scripts to analyze your source code
Use tools to help you build, debug, and keep track of code most effectively
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