Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices

How to Use This Book

My primary goal in writing this book was to create a resource that would make a concrete, noticeable difference in the quality of the PL/SQL code you write. To accomplish this, the book needs to be useful and usable not just for general study, but also for day-to-day, program-to-program tasks. It also needs to be concise and to the point. A 1,000-page text on best practices would be overwhelming, intimidating, and hard to use.

The result is this relatively brief (I consider any publication under 200 pages a major personal accomplishment!), highly structured book. I recommend that you approach Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices as follows:

1. Read Section P.3. Some of the best practices in this book—whole chapters, in fact—will have a much higher impact than others on the quality and efficiency of your code. If you find that your current practices (or those of your organization) are far from the mark, then you will have identified your priorities for initial study.

2. Skip to Appendix A and peruse the best practice titles from each chapter. If you have been programming for any length of time, you will probably find yourself thinking: “Yes, I do that,” and “Uh-huh, we’ve got that one covered.” Great! I would still encourage you to read what I’ve got to say on those topics, as you might be able to deepen your knowledge or learn new techniques. In any case, a quick review of the appendix will allow you to identify areas that are new to you, or perhaps strike a chord, as in ...