Jason Johnson

Totally cool! Lex deHaan, the author of the book “Mastering Oracle SQL and SQL*Plus” actually emailed me right back! Lex thanked me for using his book, and pointed me to the sql script that I need to run in order to do the exercises. Very impressive.

I mentioned that when I went to the websites the book told me to go to and got the zipfile and extracted the files, even though the folders are organized nicely; I just didn’t know what to look for after I had the files. I was looking for BOOK.sql or anything along those lines inside of chapter02 or in casus (I think that means cases, this book was originally in Dutch) I just wasn’t certain what to run, in what order or how exactly. I said that the book mentions guidelines on how to do this, but I couldn’t locate any guides on either of the web sites. So hopefully they will iron that out and make it as plain as day in the future.

So I’m back in business just like that thanks to Lex and his excellent customer service and giving me a hand. You have to give him some serious props for coming through so quickly. These days it’s not at all that common to find people backing their products with service like that. When they do, it’s downright inspiring. I will continue my SQL saga and keep you all posted and as for today, Lex and his book get five stars for both excellent customer service and a well written book.

So I’m cruising through my new “Mastering SQL” book; I’m learning about Data Definition Language like your CREATE, ALTER and DROP. I’m moving on to Data Manipulation Language: INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE Retrieval, Security and Authorization. Constraints, Object Naming I’m on fire and then 39 pages in…”At this point, to follow along, you need the BOOK schema with the seven case tables created. Refer to blah blah blah for guidelines on how to do this” So go to the websites the book points me to and NOTHING. Dangit, how the heck do I get the BOOK schema and seven case table created in my database!? This is a very frustrating snag. I’m a beginner. I know NOTHING and NOHTING is all I’m getting for help. The sites must have the guidelines on how to do this BURIED because I can’t locate them. What a headache. Here I go through all the trouble of getting iSQL*Plus going, a VNC server so I can get in remotely later when I’m stuck other places…not cool. These guys are ebbing away at all my momentum. I gave up Googling their site stabbing in the dark for “setup guidelines” for the schema and those tables and sent them an email. Something like this should be painfully obvious and a main area of the books site. I hope that they get back and soon.

On the positive side I found and have been reading through an amazing, if not a bit steep, (at least for me insofar) free online book/tutorial by an MIT prof named Philip Greenspun called “SQL for Web Nerds” at http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ it is very entertaining. Philip’s a wry witty guy and if you surf over and give his “SQL for Web Nerds” a read I’m sure you’ll find it’s a hoot and probably learn a little something too. The best thing, there’s no buyer remorse with this book and even if you don’t learn anything at least you’ll be entertained a get a laugh.

So, because I’m frozen in the other book I’m going to tear through Philip’s book and see what I can learn instead.

In an effort to accomplish my goal of learning SQL as quick and painless and easy AND so that I can scratch at least ONE item off my list of 43Things; I just ran out an picked up “Mastering Oracle SQL and SQL*Plus.”

So far so good. The book is fresh-off the presses this year and Friday I installed Oracle 10g off of the disk that was included with the book, no problems. I’m working my way through the chapters and I hope to have it finished and mastered by the end of this month (August 31) as I’ll be going into work early and staying after to do the tutorials which I hope will bring from my lowly beginner status to that of intermediate-expert!

We shall see, anyway, here I go jumping in with both feet!