Oracle 8i Web Development

Book Review for: Oracle8i Web Development written by Bradley D. Brown, published by McGraw-Hill companies, Inc. copyright 2000Sequels are sometimes a mere shadow of the original. Could this be true of Brad's second book, Oracle8i Web Development? The original book, Oracle Application Server Web Toolkit Reference, was written in early 1998 by Bradley, Richard J. Niemiec and Joseph C. Trezzo of TUSC and is an incredible value with its vast quantity of Web information. So how does Brad's new book stack up to the first? It took me several weeks to review Brad's first book due to the enormous amount of material and this one took longer for the same reason. This book took has an incredible amount of web development information, in fact I refer to it as the A to Z , numbers included, Oracle Web Development Manual. But the question is, did I like it and would I recommend it? The answer... absolutely. Because it covers just about everything you would need to know about developing an Oracle based web site. It starts with an well-itemized list of contents, which is 26 pages long, followed by 1050 pages of web development content as listed below.Hardware and OS considerations, specifications and installation of the web server, OAS configuration, web database, HTTP Listeners and Oracle8i built-ins are some of the topics discussed in the early chapters. Tuning, uptime and web server version differences are also covered to help educate the reader. There are several chapters on development tools and their differences, including many examples. The tools and languages covered at length are HTML, JAVA, XML, PL/SQL,PERL, cartridges, and Oracle Designer. Designing the site is thoroughly addressed, including discussions for a commerce server. Something I had not thought about until I read this, then realized "of course, makes a lot of sense to have a commerce server." The book goes on to describe utilities and offers troubleshooting tips , debugging code and security; an extremely important topic when you deal with your customer's information, like credit card processing. Need I say more, other than you are not getting a book with boring narrative, but one filled with page after page of code examples, topic tips, screen shots examples, diagrams and flow charts. In fact when I went back and looked at the layout of the book I realized it has an extremely good page layout and use of white space. In other words the layout appears to be "designed" rather than happenstance where many writers place diagrams and charts near pertinent text. It is not an easy task to keep the interest of a reader in a highly technical book, but my hat's off to Brad's accomplishment in doing so.The book concludes with a 38 page index and a 26 page appendix of great web sites. When I contacted Brad about the extremely helpful web sites to find his source he told me he had to compile the list. When you see the list you will know tha

Mr. Brown, Great job on the book, I have been in this field of development for awhile now and your book is the first of it's kind. To intelligently formulate in words, the complexities of what Oracle offers in this field of development, is truly a feat. In my role as an Oracle web architect, I thank you for your work.Chris Schneider - Silicon Valley

Anyone who is serious about developing an Oracle web application needs to buy this book. This is by far the BEST book I have seen for the application developer. This is not the typical administration oriented book or just a detailed description of Oracle documentation. They cover just about EVERYTHING, from hardware to site design to OAS install, configuration and tuning to WebDB to HTML, JavaScript, listeners (not just Oracle's), XML, Designer Generation (i.e., WSG), Security, Developer (particularly reports deployed on the Web), Java and Perl Cartridges (even some material on Fujitsu's COBOL cartridge), Oracle Internet Commerce Server, and many utilities to assist web development such as Paint Shop Pro, TOAD, WS_FTP, HTML editors, debugging code and a superb section on web sites for developers. And even more.Have I got you salivating yet? In the two hours I spent perusing this book last night I found ideas and techniques for solutions to 2 or 3 problems I have been seeking for some time. The complement to this book is the TUSC group's other Oracle Press book, Oracle Application Server Web Toolkit Reference. You MIGHT need an HTML and JavaScript reference occasionally and good PL/SQL reference material. Choose O'Reilly for these, and armed with the other two books you can be the Web App BATMAN!

This book offers information from Oracle experts who know the Oracle database and the Oracle Web development product suite. No where else can one find all the answers for deploying a Web solution with the best tools on the market. With the information overload regarding Web based technology solutions - this book clearly and concisely sorts through all the hype.

If this book had been written two years ago, it would have saved me a lot of time and agony. Bradley Brown really knows how to answer those important questions to make you go forward in development with OAS.The book contains a lot of useful tips and the techniques are explained in a straight-forward and simple way that is easy to understand. Here you can find some of that information you want but can't find in the Oracle documentation...