RE: Re[3]: SQL and PL/SQL tuning template document required urgen

Jonathan

   Thanks for replying. I tend to agree with you, I never found the user level ratings to be useful.

   You've probably assessed Cary's book more than anyone besides Cary himself. How much experience with Oracle do you feel a person should have before we recommend this book to them? I suppose if a developer is trying to tune queries, this book might not be suitable. My feeling is that even a novice DBA should be able to understand at least Part 1 and Part 3, and it would get them started on the right path. Can you confirm that? I don't want to recommend the wrong resource to someone. Thanks.

Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 1:24 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L urgently

Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 12:59:34 PM, you wrote: DW> Sams Publishing puts a "User Level" rating on their books. Maybe we DW> should ask O'Reilly to do the same. How about that Jonathan?

I don't know that we've ever thought of doing that, and I think the practice would be frought with problems. People aren't so easily pigeonholed. Just in terms of "beginner", I can think of:

• New to Oracle, experienced with other databases
• New to the task of tuning SQL, but an expert tuner at the operating/system level
• New to databases and to tuning, but a quick-learner with a solid grounding in computer science
• Clueless

We could put a user-rating on a book, but there's just no way to account for all the variables such as those I've just listed. Tags such as "beginner", "intermediate", and so forth are over-simplifications. Actually, such tags are aggregates that hide detail<grin>. Better, I think, to just describe a book as accurately as possible and let readers make up their own minds.

Best regards,

Jonathan Gennick --- Brighten the corner where you are http://Gennick.com * 906.387.1698 * mailto:jonathan@gennick.com

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