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I've been developing Oracle applications for many years and have never found a book more resourceful than Tom's. It is packed full of valuable information and is a must have for anyone working with Oracle. It covers many aspects application development from a variety of languages including C, PL/SQL and Java. Most Oracle books are strictly for reference, this book makes for good reference but also is great reading and covers interesting concepts. Chapter 1 in this book is called "Developing Successful Oracle Applications" and is a must read. I recently found that my long running query was not properly using the index I created. I looked in Tom's book and found the answer to my problem under a section called "Why isn't my Index Getting Used?" What more could you ask for? If you're a beginner, intermediate or advanced programmer, or DBA this book is for you.

This book belongs on every developer, team leader, or DBAs desk that works with Oracle. Kyte has written a masterpiece in advanced Oracle knowledge. He does three things very well in this book: tells you what is important in Oracle, why it is important, and what happens if you do things the wrong way.

Kyte starts out giving the foundations for Oracle databases, the architecture, locking schemes, and table and index considerations. He gives a good treatment of the types of tables and indexes that Oracle offers including the appropriate times to use them and the trade-offs to weigh.

Another key topic that he covers is redo and rollback. These features are handled in a unique way in Oracle, and a lack of understanding can lead to inefficient and incorrect databases and applications.

Armed with the foundations, Kyte then takes the reader through performance tuning and optimizing databases. The best advice in this section is that performance cannot be thrown in at the end. The design decisions for a database will determine how it performs and scales. As he says, "There is no fast=true setting in the init parameters."

Then the book tackles some more advanced features, such as autonomous transactions, dynamic sql, and C and Java extensions for stored procedures. Kyte again gives good advice for when these are appropriate over standard PL/SQL stored procedures.

The size of the book can be intimidating at first glance, but it is pleasant to read. Kyte uses a conversational style rather than a lecturing delivery. This book has a lot to offer, and you won't find yourself tired after reading it.

Undoubtly, this is the one of best oracle book ever written.