Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: I have to disagree with the other reviewers and say that this book is overrated. It's one of those books where it's often hard to find the information and you end up looking elsewhere. To start off with, the index is not the greatest. Try looking up "ORDER BY". It's only mentioned in the index as one item in an EXPLAIN PLAN command. In general, I found the examples they use to be only bare bones examples. It would be nice to see some more complex SQL. On the plus side, the book seems fairly free of errors and a lot of information is packed into the pages. There's not a whole lot of writing but you shouldn't be expecting that given that it's an "essential reference". This isn't a bad book per se. However, it's been on my desk for nearly a year and I just don't find myself using it much.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reference
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer that this book is not a tutorial. But it is an outstanding reference that will save you many long, frustrating and tedious hours of pouring through the Oracle documentation looking for the syntax of various Oracle commands. I've been spending the last few months developing a JDBC based application and this is the only book that I carry with me between work and home. If you've ever been kept up late trying to get the syntax right on some complex SELECT or CREATE TABLE command, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer that this book is not a tutorial. But it is an outstanding reference that will save you many long, frustrating and tedious hours of pouring through the Oracle documentation looking for the syntax of various Oracle commands. I've been spending the last few months developing a JDBC based application and this is the only book that I carry with me between work and home. If you've ever been kept up late trying to get the syntax right on some complex SELECT or CREATE TABLE command, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: It's a SQL REFERENCE, dummy!
Review: I have found this book to be an invaluable reference to SQL, PL/SQL, and SQL*Plus syntax and usage. The previous review by Kevin McCormick seems to entirely miss the point of an Essential Reference - it is not intended to teach SQL concepts, and the introduction clearly states this. The book is well organized with exactly the information needed to write a particular statement. The examples are simple and to the point - I don't need a complex example; just something to show me what the statement should look like (for example, to show me that an argument should be a string and not a number). I bought two copies: one for the office and one for home. The book is as close to indispensible as you can get. I only hope the author is planning an update to Oracle 9!
Rating:
Summary: It's a SQL REFERENCE, dummy!
Review: I have found this book to be an invaluable reference to SQL, PL/SQL, and SQL*Plus syntax and usage. The previous review by Kevin McCormick seems to entirely miss the point of an Essential Reference - it is not intended to teach SQL concepts, and the introduction clearly states this. The book is well organized with exactly the information needed to write a particular statement. The examples are simple and to the point - I don't need a complex example; just something to show me what the statement should look like (for example, to show me that an argument should be a string and not a number). I bought two copies: one for the office and one for home. The book is as close to indispensible as you can get. I only hope the author is planning an update to Oracle 9!
Rating: 
Summary: Shame! Shame! Shame!
Review: I was a programmer/analyst having used SQL and Oracle for some time, who was very much interested in adding a good SQL text to my IT reference library. My primary SQL reference at that time was the "Oracle Complete Reference" from Oracle Press. I had excellent success with O'reilly Oracle books in the past and thus purchased Oracle SQL.
I cant believe some of the basic SQL concepts that are omitted from this book!! The concept of a table alias, the Oracle DUAL table, SQL statements that accept a single value vs a list - not even mentioned in this book!! An entire text book on the single subject of SQL should be thorough! By thorough I mean cover in good detail the introductory concepts as well as the advanced.
O'reilly has excellent books published on the subjects of PL/SQL and SQL*Plus. Why does this author skimp on SQL concepts and waste chapters on these subjects that I'm not interested in!!! I usually find the O'reilly books preferable to the one's from Oracle Press. Not in the case of SQL!
Rating:
Summary: It's not a "reference" -- it's an "overview" or a "tour"
Review: This book gives a great overview of Oracle's flavor of SQL, and if you already know some other brand's SQL, you'll breeze right through, and have a very good idea of what's new and different in Oracle. You'll be able to sit right down and get to work. (If, on the other hand, you're a SQL beginner, stop right here. This is not a book for SQL newbies. There is not a chapter with 100 examples of different types of SELECT statements, for example. It is not a tutorial!) Each chapter covers a different area. For example, chapter 5 is about "SQL Functions". It goes through all the functions, giving you the syntax, a paragraph saying what it does, and then an actual example. Many of the examples are pretty trivial, just a couple of lines, but the ones in the PL/SQL chapter have some meaningful code to illustrate things like the LOOP statement, which is nice. But. When you come back after the weekend and want to look something up, you'll be banging your head against the wall, because the index on this thing is sorely lacking. Just now I spent ten minutes trying to look up %TYPE, and had to leaf through the book before finding it on page 266. Very annoying. O'Reilly should know better: an "essential" part of any "reference" book is a kick-ass index. I give it five stars for content and one star for lack of meaningful index, for an overall rating of three stars. Maybe in the next release they'll get it right. (Speaking of which: this book is (c)2000 and covers up to Oracle 8i.)
Rating:
Summary: Oracle SQL: The Essential Refernce
Review: This book is exactly what it says it is. It is a solid (in comparison to other reference books that I have used) reference guide to ORACLE's implementation of the SQL language. If you are looking for a tutorial on SQL, then this is probably not the book that you want to buy. This is a good book if you are a developer whom needs a quick reference guide. The beginning section of the reference chapter is, in my opinion, a little bit of a kluge. The authors attempt to list everything that a DBA/developer might need to do. This LONG list simply states the command needed. You then need to look up the syntax in the index (why not just put the page number right there?) The list covers multiple pages, so it can be troublesome to read (if you don't know the exact terminology). I must admit that I am a beginner SQL developer, so I have only used a limited amount of the commands, but it has been very useful for the commands that I have used, and in helping me expand what I am using SQL for. I must stress that it is NOT a tutorial.
Rating:
Summary: Oracle SQL: The Essential Refernce
Review: This book is exactly what it says it is. It is a solid (in comparison to other reference books that I have used) reference guide to ORACLE's implementation of the SQL language. If you are looking for a tutorial on SQL, then this is probably not the book that you want to buy. This is a good book if you are a developer whom needs a quick reference guide. The beginning section of the reference chapter is, in my opinion, a little bit of a kluge. The authors attempt to list everything that a DBA/developer might need to do. This LONG list simply states the command needed. You then need to look up the syntax in the index (why not just put the page number right there?) The list covers multiple pages, so it can be troublesome to read (if you don't know the exact terminology). I must admit that I am a beginner SQL developer, so I have only used a limited amount of the commands, but it has been very useful for the commands that I have used, and in helping me expand what I am using SQL for. I must stress that it is NOT a tutorial.
Rating:
Summary: You can't live without this book
Review: Well maybe you could live without this book if you had food and water, but you wouldn't be happy about it. SQL isn't especially difficult, but it's hard to remember all of the syntax. Then couple this with the differences between Oracle's SQL and other database's versions and you have a serious headache that will not go away. As in almost all O'Reilly books, this one is very well-organized and easy to follow. There are just enough examples to get you by, though if you are coupling Oracle, SQL and a scripting language like ColdFusion you might get confused with the "command line only" examples. Oracle's Technet reference online is also good for this information, but they have a tendency to move URLs when you least expect it. This book is relatively inexpensive, and when kept within arm's reach you can whip out SQL queries in nothing flat. Earmark the reserved words section and remember where the Aggregate Functions section starts and you should be good. The first half of the text is really enough to recommend the purchase, but this book also goes over SQL*Plus and PL/SQL, as well as some brief tips on SQL statement tuning. It isn't enough to be complete, but it's more than enough to get you started. This is an indispensible book!
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