From: wlp@hounix.org (William L. Pribyl)
Subject: Re: Books on Oracle programming
Organization: Houston UNIX Users Group (HOUNIX), Houston, TX
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:11:07 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.195749.13044@pb.se> johe@pbutv.pb.se (Jonas Heyman) writes:
>
>I've looked in our local bookstore after Oracle books, with no luck.
>I'm looking for PL/SQL, Forms 3 and PRO/C books.
>Tips and techniques for application development.
>
>Any suggestions on anything I should get ?
>Thanks, Jonas,
> 
>-- 
>
>   /johe@pbutv.pb.se/

[Good item for a FAQ, don't you think?]

There are good books out on Oracle, but the ones I've seen tend to cover a 
lot of ground quickly, and might include only a few pages on the 
subjects in which you are interested.  Instead of giving you titles, I will
offer some alternative published resources that you may find useful.

If you are attending the International Oracle User Week in San Francisco
next week, you will receive a set of proceedings containing many tips and
techniques on the PL/SQL, Forms 3 and Pro*C.  

If not, you can still order the proceedings from the Int'l Oracle User Group, 
check with your local Oracle user group if you have one.  If you can't find the
proceedings, reply to me via e-mail, I will give you more details after next
week's conference.  Back-issues may be useful as well, if you can find them.

In addition, you might want to look into purchasing back-issues of the
"International Oracle Users Journal" from your user group as well.  Again, 
contact me if you can't find this publication.  I will contact the publisher
and arrange to get you more information.  The Journal tries to come out 
twice a year.

Oracle users in the USA are entitled to receive "Oracle: The SQL Database 
Journal" free from Oracle Corp.  It comes out quarterly and often includes 
tips and techniques.  Call the tech support phone number and ask for Client 
Relations if you are not receiving this publication.  (I don't know what
Oracle offers non-US customers.)

One of the better kept secrets is the "Oracle Integrator" which Oracle mails
free of charge to members of their Business Alliance programs.  It is a 
fairly technical publication, and may be available to all customers
on request, I don't know for sure.  It seems to be published once every
couple of months or so.

If you have paid-up Oracle tech supt, you can dial up Oracle's bulletin
board (known as RTSS, Real Time Support System) and view the latest bulletins
on the subjects you mention.  Often there are OS-specific and otherwise 
undocumented treasures there.  You can also call tech support and ask them
to search for bulletins on specific subjects and then mail or fax them to you.
Beginnig later this month, Oracle tech support will offer "fax-on-demand"
via the regular tech support phone number, which presumably will be another
way for you to get the bulletins.  (Again, this applies to tech support
in Redwood Shores, I don't know what they do in other countries.)

And don't forget that one of your best resources is Oracle's own technical 
manuals, the quality of which seems to be ever improving...
There is almost always useful information in the read-me files, too.


--Bill

-- 
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William L. Pribyl                 |
Independent Oracle Consultant     |  Internet:  wlp@hounix.org
Editor, Intl Oracle Tech Journal  |     or   :  70451.2315@compuserve.com