Steven Feuerstein

Chicago, Illinois

Oracle PL/SQL expert, evangelist, author and trainer

Areas of Expertise:

PL/SQL
Oracle
stored procedures
consulting

speaking
training
writing

Biography
Books
Blog
Articles

Steven Feuerstein is considered to be one of the world's leading experts on the Oracle PL/SQL language, having written ten books on PL/SQL, including Oracle PL/SQL Programming and Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices (all published by O'Reilly Media). Steven has been developing software since 1980, spent five years with Oracle (1987-1992), and has served as PL/SQL Evangelist for Quest Software since January 2001. He is an Oracle ACE Director and writes regularly for Oracle Magazine, which named him the PL/SQL Developer of the Year in both 2002 and 2006. He is also the first recipient of ODTUG's Lifetime Achievement Award (2009). Steven's latest initiative is the PL/SQL Challenge (http://www.plsqlchallenge.com), a daily quiz for PL/SQL developers; hundreds of programmers play each day. Check it out and join the fun! Steven's online technical cyberhome is located at www.ToadWorld.com/SF. You can also catch up on his latest, mostly non-PLSQL rants at http://feuerthoughts.blogspot.com.

Oracle PL/SQL Programming by Steven Feuerstein , Bill Pribyl Fifth Edition September 2009 Print: $69.99 Ebook: $55.99	Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference by Steven Feuerstein , Bill Pribyl , Chip Dawes Fourth Edition October 2007 Print: $14.99 Ebook: $11.99
Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices by Steven Feuerstein Second Edition October 2007 Print: $29.99 Ebook: $23.99	MySQL Stored Procedure Programming by Guy Harrison , Steven Feuerstein March 2006 Print: $44.99 Ebook: $35.99
Oracle PL/SQL for DBAs by Arup Nanda , Steven Feuerstein October 2005 Print: $44.99 Ebook: $35.99	Oracle PL/SQL Programming by Steven Feuerstein , Bill Pribyl Fourth Edition August 2005 Ebook: $51.99
Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference by Steven Feuerstein , Bill Pribyl , Chip Dawes Third Edition April 2004 Ebook: $6.99	Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference by Steven Feuerstein , Bill Pribyl , Chip Dawes Second Edition February 2003 OUT OF PRINT
Oracle PL/SQL Programming by Steven Feuerstein Third Edition September 2002 OUT OF PRINT	Learning Oracle PL/SQL by Bill Pribyl November 2001 Print: $49.99 Ebook: $39.99
Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices by Steven Feuerstein April 2001 Ebook: $13.99	Oracle PL/SQL Programming: A Developer's Workbook by Steven Feuerstein , Andrew Odewahn May 2000 Print: $54.99 Ebook: $43.99
Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Featu by Steven Feuerstein October 1999 OUT OF PRINT	Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference by Bill Pribyl , Steven Feuerstein , Chip Dawes April 1999 OUT OF PRINT
Oracle PL/SQL Built-ins Pocket Reference by Steven Feuerstein , John Beresniewicz , Chip Dawes October 1998 OUT OF PRINT	Oracle Built-in Packages by Steven Feuerstein , Charles Dye , John Beresniewicz May 1998 Print: $49.95 Ebook: $39.99
Oracle PL/SQL Programming by Steven Feuerstein Second Edition September 1997 OUT OF PRINT	Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages by Steven Feuerstein October 1996 OUT OF PRINT
Oracle PL/SQL Programming by Steven Feuerstein September 1993 OUT OF PRINT

Steven blogs at:
http://feuerthoughts.blogspot.com
http://www.toadworld.com/sf

Ah Beautiful Brain - a Haiku

May 29 2013

Ah, beautiful brain:Where have you been all my life?And where are you going? read more

Who Knew That I Knew So Much?

May 22 2013

I don't know what I would do without LinkedIn.Before this amazing website came along, I was pretty sure that my software skills could be described as:1. Oracle PL/SQL: excellent2. SQL: just OK3. Database Design: well, sort of4. HTML: dangerous5. XML: really dangerous6. Java: pitiful7. Everything else: nothing going onSee, I… read more

Win a Copy of the New Oracle Multimedia Book!

May 17 2013

My good friend, Marcelle Kratochvil, is the Oracle ACE Director for (as she put it to me) "all data/any data." She's been working with Oracle since V4 and specializes in Oracle Multimedia. She has been a beta tester for this product since Oracle8i and runs… read more

How to Get 32 Scrabble Points with SEEN

May 08 2013

Back in mid-March, I wrote:A week ago, I played a game of Scabble with Veva and scored 32 points by placing the word "SEEN" on the board. Now, every letter in "SEEN" is worth 1 point, making it very difficult to get to 32 points. But I attached "SEEN" to… read more

What I Look Like When Shaving Stops

May 08 2013

Haven't shaved for two weeks. Decided to give my skin a break, and I also wondered: what do I really look like? Shaving my head is, I have come to accept, the "main vain" thing I do in my life (well, that and painting flamboyan flowers on my toenails).How much… read more

Can't please everyone, I suppose

May 08 2013

Back in April 2010, I started up the PL/SQL Challenge (www.plsqlchallenge.com) to provide quizzes on PL/SQL, SQL, logic and Oracle Application Express.Hundreds of people take these quizzes each day. Since that time, over 670,000 answers have been submitted by thousands of Oracle technologists.But you can't please everyone. I received this… read more

Once a program is in use, you can't change it willy-nilly. AKA: Ensure backward compatibility as you add parameters.

April 17 2013

Steven discusses why your subprograms should be�defined inside a package with�overloading of that subprogram (a procedure or function with the same name, but with the new parameter list that contains the OUT or IN OUT argument) added to support different requirements.Tags: oracle,plsql,package,function,overloading,argument,parametersCategory: PL/SQL Obsession read more

A February 2013 Interview with Steven Feuerstein

March 25 2013

I visited the Czech Republic in February to do a training for Oracle and another for the IT department of a financial institution based in Brno (second largest city after Prague). I thought you might enjoy reading this.... � You have been developing software since 1980. What were the conditions like for… read more

Scrabble Puzzle

March 15 2013

I like Scrabble, for many reasons.I like words. I like to write. I like to read.But one of the things I like best about Scrabble is how it is so much like life.Every time I play a game of Scrabble, something totally amazing about the pattern of play in that… read more

Coding Therapy Video Sessions!

March 11 2013

For the past several years, I have given my Coding Therapy talk to Oracle technologists, offering insights through: Dream therapy Shock therapy Game therapy Couples therapy It is, of course, entirely tongue-in-cheek, but also (I hope) helpful to programmers, in giving them a different perspective on some of the challenges… read more

You need to enable JavaScript to view more than 15 articles by this author.

Using PL/SQL Records in SQL Statements
Publish Date: Apr. 22, 2003The PL/SQL RECORD datatype has been available for years; however, its usefulness was limited because it wasn't possible to use records inside SQL statements. Oracle 9i Release 2 corrects this deficiency. In this final installment in their series on new Oracle 9i features, Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, and Bryn Llewellyn demonstrate how you can now employ records in UPDATE, INSERT, DELETE, and SELECT statements. Oracle 9i Release 2 Developments for PL/SQL Collections
Publish Date: Apr. 1, 2003Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, and Bryn Llewellyn explore PL/SQL collections in Oracle 9i Release 2, with particular emphasis on associative arrays. This is the latest installment in their continuing series on new Oracle 9i features. Find out why extending the flexibility of the collection syntax, storage, and access makes it possible to write much simpler, more efficient code than was possible in earlier versions. HTTP Communication from Within the Oracle Database
Publish Date: Mar. 4, 2003In this latest installment in their continuing series on new Oracle 9i features, Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, and Bryn Llewellyn take a look at Utl_Http and show how you can use it in an Oracle 9i database to implement a requestor in a B2B implementation. Multi-Level Collections in Oracle 9i
Publish Date: Feb. 11, 2003With Oracle 9i you can have multi-level collections or collections nested within collections. In the next installment in their continuing series on new Oracle 9i features, Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, and Bryn Llewellyn show how to work with multi-level collections, using examples that progress from the simple to the complex. Table Functions and Cursor Expressions
Publish Date: Jan. 22, 2003In their continuing series on new Oracle 9i features, Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, and Bryn Llewellyn introduce cursor expressions and then show how those expressions can be utilized with table functions. Native Compilation, CASE, and Dynamic Bulk Binding
Publish Date: Jan. 7, 2003In Part 4 in his series on new Oracle 9i features, Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, and Bryn Llewellyn cover native compilation of PL/SQL, CASE statements and CASE expressions, and bulk binding in native dynamic SQL. New Datatypes, New Possibilities
Publish Date: Dec. 9, 2002In Part 3 in his series on new Oracle 9i features, Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, looks at some of Oracle's new datatypes and shows how you can make them work for you. Substituting and Converting Object Types in a Hierarchy
Publish Date: Nov. 12, 2002In Part 2 in his series on new Oracle 9i features, Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, explores the advantages and flexibilities of object-type hierarchies by examining substitutability and type conversion. Inherit the Database: Oracle9i's Support for Object Type Inheritance
Publish Date: Oct. 29, 2002Steven Feuerstein, coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 3rd Edition, offers a quick review of object types and then shows how you can build object-type hierarchies by taking advantage of inheritance. This is the first installment in an eight-part series on new Oracle 9i features. Not All Best Practices Are Created Equal
Publish Date: Apr. 2, 2001O'Reilly author offers his best of the best of Oracle PL/SQL Practices. By Steven Feuerstein, author of O'Reilly's Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices (April 2001). A Unit Testing Framework for Oracle PL/SQL-- What's New
Publish Date: Mar. 20, 2001utPLSQL Update The Importance of Unit Testing
Publish Date: Jan. 2, 2001A unit test is a test that a developer creates to ensure that his or her "unit", usually a single program, works properly. A unit test is very different from a system or functional test; these latter types of test are oriented to application features or overall testing of the system. You cannot properly or effectively perform a system test until you know that the individual programs behave as expected. The utPLSQL Project
Publish Date: Jan. 1, 2001utPLSQL is an open source, unit-testing framework for Oracle PL/SQL developers. Created by Steven Feuerstein, author of several classic PL/SQL books and a leading PL/SQL trainer, utPLSQL is being developed as open source, consistent with the lightweight development methodology known as Extreme Programming. Aw, Gee, Mom, Do I Have to Test My Code?
Publish Date: Jun. 1, 2000I don't really like to have to take the time to test my software (nor do I like to write documentation for it). I do it, but I don't ever really do enough of it. And I have this funny feeling that I am not alone. The overwhelming reality is that developers generally perform an inadequate number of inadequate tests and figure that if the users don't find a bug, there is no bug. Why does this happen? Let me count the ways...

"If you are responsible for PL/SQL coding, this book needs to be on your desk. Period. "
--Michael Wehrle, Amazon.com

Hire Steven Feuerstein

Also find Steven on:

Buy Now and Save

About O'Reilly

Community

Partner Sites

Shop O'Reilly