In this compact book, Steven Feuerstein, widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on the Oracle PL/SQL language, distills his many years of programming, teaching, and writing about PL/SQL into a set of best practices-recommendations for developing successful applications. Covering the latest Oracle release, Oracle Database 11gR2, Feuerstein has rewritten this new edition in the style of his bestselling Oracle PL/SQL Programming. The text is organized in a problem/solution format, and chronicles the programming exploits of developers at a mythical company called My Flimsy Excuse, Inc., as they write code, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes-and each other.

This book offers practical answers to some of the hardest questions faced by PL/SQL developers, including:

• What is the best way to write the SQL logic in my application code?



• How should I write my packages so they can be leveraged by my entire team of developers?



• How can I make sure that all my team's programs handle and record errors consistently?

Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices summarizes PL/SQL best practices in nine major categories: overall PL/SQL application development; programming standards; program testing, tracing, and debugging; variables and data structures; control logic; error handling; the use of SQL in PL/SQL; building procedures, functions, packages, and triggers; and overall program performance.

This book is a concise and entertaining guide that PL/SQL developers will turn to again and again as they seek out ways to write higher quality code and more successful applications.

"This book presents ideas that make the difference between a successful project and one that never gets off the ground. It goes beyond just listing a set of rules, and provides realistic scenarios that help the reader understand where the rules come from. This book should be required reading for any team of Oracle database professionals."

--Dwayne King, President, KRIDAN Consulting

Average Customer Review: ( 14 customer reviews )
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In the book, Steven covers the various topics that a developer needs to know. Starting from a high level view of the development process and coding styles/conventions, he drills down to the detailed technical issues of creating variables and data structures, control structures and exception handling. There is an excellent section on coding SQL statements in PL/SQL, which is one of the main reasons for writing PL/SQL to begin with. The book closes with an examination of functions, procedures and packages including several of Oracle's key built-in packages.

The best practices themselves are well-organized, concise and illustrated with specific examples. Steven provides his own insights for each best practice. As with all his books, this one is well thought out and worth twice the price!

7 of 8 found the following review helpful:

Excellent resource for new or experienced PL/SQL programmersApr 02, 2002
By Allen Taylor
I found this book to be an excellent (re-)introduction to good programming practices in PL/SQL. After reading the first few pages a little defensively ("I don't make those sorts of mistakes do I?") I soon realised that there was much to learn in this book as well as much that I had forgotten.

This book has lead to an instant improvement in the quality of my PL/SQL code. I particularly like the Quick Reference card in the back of the book.

6 of 7 found the following review helpful:

A Handy Reference For Intermediate PL/SQL Programmers.Mar 15, 2003
By Philip R. Heath "Gadgets, Music, & Books"
This is not a text for learning PL/SQL programming. Feuerstein's PL/SQL Programming text is much more suited for that. What you have in this book is information that the author has distilled from his other works. In a way it could be considered a summary as the title might suggest. This book is a must have for the leader of an organization that is beginning to use PL/SQL. You will find what you need for your programming standards here.

In addition to good standards suggestions, the author also gives a lot of resources that are available to PL/SQL developers. One of the prime examples is utPLSQL, a unit testing tool for stored procedures and functions. The author gives numerous other web sites and tool suggestions throughout the book.

Anyone looking to increase their PL/SQL productivity should pick up this book.

7 of 9 found the following review helpful:

Wisdom in a PackageJun 19, 2001
By Anand Srinivasan
I have been an avid reader of Steven's books ever since I started learning PL/SQL as part of my career in Oracle. Without a doubt he is an authority on this proprietary language from Oracle and has a vast repository of code that he can proudly claim his own. This book is ideal for those who have experience working with applications built on Oracle. You may have encountered situations in which you probably chose an approach to solve a problem or get something done in a hurry without thinking through the implications on performance or taking recourse to some useful features in PL/SQL. These practices classified by topic will not only explain the wisdom but also illustrate how to use it.

Make sure you keep it handy and follow these guidelines religiously in your application code.

Hats off to Steven and O'Reilly for another useful title !

4 of 5 found the following review helpful:

Keep searchingJan 09, 2009
By Optimus "Prime"
I expected a lot more from a guru. It can be helpful to give examples of what not to do, but these examples cover 50%.
Furthermore referencing an excuses-application only confuses the reader, this is not something you can relate to.
Giving partial code and referring to code on the web is rather annoying.
Moral of the story: keep searching for better practices!

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