Obsessed with Oracle PL/SQL

I just received this question in my In Box: "Which book do you recommend for people, brand new to PL/SQL? Assume the user is already familiar with SQL and now wants to start programming in Oracle." First, I must confess that I spend too little time thinking about and being in contact with developers who are brand-new to PL/SQL. That is something I need to and plan to correct, especially given that when I search on "PL/SQL" in search engines, 3-4 of the top 10 hits are for tutorial sites. There is clearly a demand. Until I put together my own set of tutorials, however, I thought I would offer the following: Books Oracle PL/SQL for Dummies Written by my good friends and really outstanding Oracle technologists, Michael Rosnblum and Paul Dorsey of Dulcian. These guys really know their stuff and have put together an accessible text. Learning Oracle PL/SQL Written primarily by my co-author on the massive Oracle PL/SQL Programming , Bill Pribyl, this book i...

A few weeks ago I announced formation of FeuerTeam, a team of Oracle technologists who would like to help me build the global PL/SQL community. And now I find myself neck deep building an APEX app that will allow both FeuerTeam members and I to “self service” the activity on FeuerTeam. The fact that I am doing this and how I am doing this may be interesting to you. It reflects so clearly how I go about doing things these days. I work on demand and try to avoid spending time on a project until I am sure it is needed. I knew that I needed a team of people to help me accomplish my goals (which are under construction as I type). But I didn’t know if many people would be interested. So I asked. And you responded. Lots of you. And then I knew: you will help me. Thanks so much!  But then I was confronted with a challenge: how do I manage this process? Iudith is reviewing a magazine article. Ravshan is helping with APEX development questions. Others will be providing solutions ...

I received this question in my In Box over the weekend: Hi Steven, I have grown up reading the PL/SQL bible, Oracle PL/SQL Programming. I have the 5th edition with me right now, Indian reprint, ISBN - 971-81-8404-949-7. I was going through the chapter 21 : Optimizing PL/SQL performance. Please refer to the section 'ROLLBACK behaviour with FORALL'.  In point number 2, it's mentioned that "Any previous DML operations in that FORALL statement that already completed without any error are NOT rolled back." Can you please explain this ? As far as I understand a FORALL can have only one DML statement, so all the previous work done by the DML will be rolled back. Thanks for your time. Hoping a response soon. An Indian reprint of the 5th edition? You are so lucky. I don't even have one of those. I don't even have a copy of that! I will have to ask my friends at O'Reilly Media for a copy! :-)  Now to answer your question, and it is ...

Back in 1995, O'Reilly published the first edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming. Changed my life...thanks readers! The following extended dedication appeared in that first edition, early evidence of my compulsive verbosity. But I still like it and thought I would offer it for your reading pleasure. Sometimes I have trouble explaining to my about-to-be-nine-year old son, Eli, the nature of my professional occupation. The statements "I work with computers" and "I write programs on computers" certainly describe my means of employment, but they do not afford much of an explanation. After some thought, I have found what I believe to be the simplest and also most accurate statement of my professional role in life: I am (or aim to be) a problem solver. Every time I write a program or assist other developers with their code, I work to solve a problem. The problem might be as broadly defined as "Build an application to keep track of all product comp...