Not another one for the pile!

My pile of Oracle-related books to read grows longer by the week.

I’ve made a start on the The Practical Performance Analyst but can’t say I’m getting on with it that well. Maybe it’s just a little too scientific for my tastes but I’ll persevere because I think the content’s valuable.

I plan to revisit Cost-Based Oracle – Fundamentals with a database in front of me, working through all of the examples slowly. I confess that it’s a long time since I’ve done so with an entire book, but I feel it’s required and the pay-off will be worth it.

I’m going to re-read Optimizing Oracle Performance. I didn’t enjoy it fully the first time because I didn’t like the slightly hyperbolic tone in places. I know the content’s valuable again though, so I’ll perservere. It’s always good to revisit material like this which can be quite dense in places, a bit like Jonathan’s book.

Oracle Wait Interface is a book that I’ve heard recommended many times. I wouldn’t normally buy a book like this. a) Because it’s published by Oracle Press and I’ve had some very unhappy previous experience with them. b) I think I know the subject fairly well and I loathe reading books that don’t teach me something new. It’ll be interesting to see the approach used, though, and see if those recommendations are accurate.

I’m still reading some of the papers from the Hotsos Symposium.

Now there’s another book in the list. My friend Peter Robson has spent a great amount of time recently working on The Art of SQL with Stephane Faroult. We’ve had many pub conversations about this book and I was lucky enough to take a look at one of the chapters early in the process. Peter has just dropped one of his free copies round to my flat. I’m confident it’s going to be a marvellous read based on my prior knowledge of the authors and our discussions through the writing process, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be reviewed here properly for quite a while! Apologies, Peter, but I have to get my reading house in order.

And I haven’t even bought Tom Kyte’s new(ish) book yet! I know that’ll be another major undertaking ….