Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition

Preface

The Oracle database is a product that’s both rich and deep. To address the complexities and variations in this product, Oracle books tend to be long and somewhat intimidating. Most of them either cover a broad scope of functionality in a fairly cursory way or delve deeply into complex and rather narrow topics, sometimes missing the forest for the trees by concentrating on the multitude of details of a particular subject. The characteristics of most current books can make it difficult to find just the information you need for your specific problem. Using some Oracle books is a bit like dealing with a web search that returns thousands of pages: it’s difficult to find the information you need efficiently.

As Oracle professionals (all of whom have worked for Oracle Corporation), we’ve found that a lot of Oracle users need explanations of the same topics. For some time we’ve wanted a book that describes all the underlying principles that shape the Oracle database, written concisely for an intelligent audience. We found that the explanations were scattered among many manuals and books and were often too complex or too simplistic. After a good deal of complaining, we finally decided to write the book ourselves.

Goals of This Book

Our main goal is to give you a foundation for using the Oracle database effectively and efficiently. Therefore, we wrote with these principles in mind:

Focus

We’ve tried to concentrate on the most important Oracle issues. Every topic provides a comprehensive ...