Ales Kavsek

More or less coplete coverage of Oracle tuning, July 11 2004

I like two things in this book, first is an old photo of the "Larry the Geek" at the beginning of the book ;-) and second, a well balanced coverage of all the different tuning pieces of the mosaic known as Oracle tuning.

This book is a classic Oracle tuning book in a sense that Rich doesn't hesitate to write about ALL the important tuning pieces. Yes, he even recommend "proactive" monitoring of instance efficiency with various hit ratios as opposed to today popular mantra of focusing solely on wait event interface (reactive tuning, according to Niemiec). In my opinion the correct approach is really somewhere in between (the fact is that monitoring hit ratios alone… Read more

Well explained MySQL concepts, July 10 2004

As an Oracle DBA, I was looking for a book that can help me better understand MySQL core concepts and differences compared to my primary working platform. I was looking for a book with the flavor of Oracle Concepts Manual. I partially read official MySQL reference manual but didn't find (get?) all the answers (nor I really enjoyed reading it - sorry AB doc. team!).
I think this book filled my knowledge gap on MySQL perfectly. Actually, this book could easily bear different title, such as "MySQL concepts guide" or something like that. You'll probably read the book in a couple of days, thanks to the author's clear writing style.
Let me give you an example. Some technical… Read more

Probably the best Python textbook, Jan 27 2004

After a brief encounter with the on-line documentation from Python community, I decided to learn this powerful language with the help of Python library from O'Reilly. I started with a "Python in a Nutshell" which is a good reference guide for experienced (Python) programmers, however it's too heavy for the Python newbie like me. Since, I'm not a professional, full-time programmer, I knew that I needed something more comprehensible, so I waited for the second edition of the "Learning Python" to be published. At the end, the wait paid off.
This book is excellent study guide for any kind of programmers, from absolute beginners to veterans in other languages. The book clearly shows that… Read more