Oracle SQLPlus [Electronic resources] : The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition نسخه متنی

Acknowledgments from the First Edition

The first book that I ever wrote consumed so much energy that I
promised myself, and my family, that I would never write another.
That promise lasted about two months, when I became consumed with the
idea of writing the book you are now reading. I owe a lot to my wife
Donna, who understands my drive to write, and who bears a lot more of
the load than she should have to while I hole up in my office and
work. This book has been my excuse for avoiding just about every
household chore imaginable, yet Donna has been very supportive during
the endeavor.

My children have contributed to the development of this book. If
nothing else, they burst into my office on a daily basis to distract
me and to remind me that there are more important things in life than
typing on a computer all day. They have also contributed time that I
might otherwise have spent with them. My three-year-old son Jeff has
grown up watching me write, and must think that all daddies come with
a laptop computer attached. To my daughter Jenny, I want to say that
I have enjoyed all our late-night excursions together to the local
bookstore. I'm glad to see that you have developed
the same love for books that I have. You may not always believe it,
but you are my pride and joy. I see a lot of myself in you, and
I'm glad you ended up as my daughter.

My profound thanks also go out to John-Paul Navarro and David Dreyer,
who read each chapter as I wrote it. David Dreyer is an independent
consultant residing near Detroit, Michigan, and specializes in
PowerBuilder and Oracle development. Dave is one of the most cerebral
programmers that I know. Always calm and thoughtful, Dave has added a
great deal to this book with his insightful comments. John-Paul
Navarro is a systems administrator for Argonne National Laboratories
in Argonne, Illinois. John-Paul and I go way back both as friends and
colleagues, and I have no end of respect for his technical abilities.
He was always willing to discuss technical issues that came up during
the writing of this book, and for that I am in his debt.

Thanks to Alison Holloway, product manager for SQL*Plus.
"Home" for Alison, and SQL*Plus,
too, in case you ever wondered, is in Melbourne, Australia. Alison
helped dig up background information and history on SQL*Plus. She
provided information on new features being added to SQL*Plus for the
upcoming Oracle8 i release, and also provided me
with an early look at the documentation. In addition to all her other
help, Alison did a technical review of the entire book after it was
written.

Kirk Bradley, Ken Jacobs, Jay Rossiter, and Richard Rendell, all of
Oracle Corporation, provided the historical information about
SQL*Plus in Chapter 1. It's
always nice to know something of the tools one works with besides
just the raw technical details of how they are used. SQL*Plus has
been around a long time, and Kirk, Ken, Jay, and Richard have
provided some interesting historical tidbits.

A number of technical reviewers read and commented on the final
manuscript. These include David Kaufman of TUSC, Dave Kreines, Eric
Givler, Alison Holloway, and John-Paul Navarro. I am grateful to each
of these people for giving me an unbiased view of the manuscript,
pointing out errors, and providing suggestions on ways to improve the
clarity of the text. This book is the better for their efforts.

Howard Vanderstow and Paul Cheney, both database administrators with
the State of Michigan's Office of Technology
Resources, provided some welcome assistance in generating the
examples for the HELP command in Chapter 2.
They helped me research the location and structure of the database
table containing the help text used by SQL*Plus.

I owe a great debt to Brian Gill, who encouraged me when I had the
initial idea for this book. Without him, this project might never
have gotten off the ground. Thanks to my agent, David Rogelberg of
Studio B, who helped me keep up with the business end of this
project, and who manages that wonderfully interesting email list that
serves so well to distract me from my real work.

Several O'Reilly people contributed to this book in
various ways. To Debby Russell of O'Reilly, the
editor of this book, I say: "thanks for all the red
ink!" Debby is a great editor to work with. She had
a lot of good ideas for organizing this book. She was very
understanding when I fell behind schedule. She was very encouraging,
always drawing attention to things I did well.

Edie Freedman designed the cover, and is responsible for that
wonderful looking moving leaf insect on the front. Steve Abrams
helped in various ways during the development of the book. Many
thanks! Rob Romano did a great job with the figures. Ellie Maden
pulled everything together and saw this book through the production
process.