To Master or not to Master

The next book on my list was "Mastering Oracle SQL and SQL *Plus" by Lex de Hann. I'm happy to report that I finished this book over the past week.
It starts out with very basic SQL syntax and simple examples, and the first 5-6 chapters were a breeze. I have covered all these things many times in my previous jobs, and felt I knew the topics pretty well. My hope was that the rest of the book would be as easy, but I must admit that a few areas touched upon, were not all that easy. For instance chapter 9.6 "Analytical Functions and Windows" seemed very theoretical and since I've never used this in a real-life scenario it, along with Nested Tables (chapter 12), needed re-reading. I've asked Thyge to discuss these topics with me this coming week (along with a few areas like Cluster Tables, Delayed Block Cleanout).

In this past week I've done some practical exercises regarding logging vs nologging. Thyge has also given me a task to restore a database, to gain some "how do I..." experience.

I'll be starting the "Oracle Insights, Tales from the Oaktable" this coming week. According to the schedule I should read the "9i Concepts Guide", but since the printed copy is still at B2C, I'll skip ahead and go for the book. I've covered just over 200 pages of the concepts guide via PDF, but will hold out for the paper version.