Subject: Oracle on Windows
From: Chad Hensley

I love O'Reilly books. I've taught myself Perl, Unix, VI, and Oracle with your books.

I just took a new job and now I have to learn Oracle on Windows. So I go to find an O'Reilly book to help me, only to discover O'Reilly does not have any Oracle books for Windows.

Why not?? Help! Please.

Chad

Chad,

Thanks for writing in with your question. I'm one of two editors here at O'Reilly who focus on Oracle titles. We've asked ourselves the same question several times: Why don't we publish a book about Oracle on Windows? We've also wondered many times about Oracle on Linux.

Every time we consider a platform-specific book on Oracle, we struggle with the fact that once you get past the initial installation and configuration, Oracle is pretty much the same across all platforms. Oracle does a very good job at insulating you from the underlying operating-system. In fact, one author we know considers Oracle to be the ultimate cross-platform development environment.

Some years back, I picked up a copy of an Oracle on Windows title from another publisher. As I leafed through the book, I discovered that much of it was really an "Introduction to Oracle" disguised as an Oracle on Windows title. The authors tended to show the use of the Enterprise Manager GUI (which ran on Windows) rather than SQL statements to create and manage database objects, and I do recall one chapter on Windows-specific tuning issues, but otherwise the book was nothing more than a tutorial in disguise. That's not the type of Oracle book I want O'Reilly to publish.

If there really is a good Oracle on Windows book to be written, or perhaps Oracle on Linux would be a better choice today, I wish someone would propose it. I have yet to see a good vision for a platform-specific Oracle title that doesn't rehash many of Oracle's platform-independent features. We're certainly open to publishing an Oracle on Windows (or on Linux) book, so long as the content lives up to the promise in its title.

Thanks again for writing in with your question. I'll be in touch to ask more about what you're doing. Perhaps I can recommend some useful books after all. Let me also point you to Jared Still's Oracle-L email list. It's one of the best places I know to post questions about Oracle (even on Windows!) and get answers. To subscribe, send an email to ListGuru@fatcity.com with the words SUBSCRIBE ORACLE-L in the message body. Fair warning: it's a high-volume list.

Best regards,

Jonathan Gennick
Editor, O'Reilly & Associates

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