I’ve been using Oracle SQL Developer I think since the very first initial betas. I could never stand the TOAD interface and the few bugs I encountered with SQL Developer were never bothersome enough to stop using the tool.
Over the years SQL Developer has matured very nicely and now is very stable and feature rich.
When someone from Packt contacted me and let me know there was a book on the way I was very excited. Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 by Sue Harper covers the latest release for SQL Developer – 2.1. This release brought a lot of stability to the project and also introduced the new Data Modeler from Oracle.
I’ve been skimming through the book for the last week or so. I honestly thought since I’ve been using SQL Developer for so long there would be very little new to me in the book but I’ve been pleasantly surprised and have picked up a lot of small tips that have helped me work smarter and more efficiently with SQL Developer.
The book covers quite a bit:
- Install, configure, customize, and manage your SQL Developer environment
- Includes the latest features to enhance productivity and simplify database development
- Covers reporting, testing, and debugging concepts
- Meet the new powerful Data Modeling tool – Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
- Detailed code examples and screenshots for easy learning
A few useful tips I’ve picked up since reading the book have been:
- The ability to highlight and filter data in the grids. This is really useful when you are trying to dig through some complicated data looking for very particular information.
- Using bind variables in the worksheet.
- The code formatter – cleaning up my mess!
What else does the book cover? There are chapters devoted to PL/SQL, dubugging and tuning, extending SQL Developer, source control integration (using Subversion) and a large chapter on the Data Modeler which I’m just waiting for a new project to start to begin exploring that particular tool.
If you are just getting started using SQL Developer I’d highly recommend the book. It will get you up to speed quickly and seems useful as a quick reference. If you are an experienced SQL Developer user I still think the added section on the new Data Modeler will be quite useful.