My goto Oracle Resources

Someone suggested I document where, who, and what I use to get things done in my day-to-day dealings with all things Oracle RDBMS. Since I am very open to suggestion, here it is:
Official Stuff
Unofficial Stuff
Twitter Folks

Updated Dec 14, 2014

Oracle Docs Official Link

Oracle’s official online documentation. I generally just ‘Google’ the term I’m interested in alongside the keyword ‘Oracle.’ Nine times out of 10 (unscientific gut feeling), the Oracle Docs link will show up near the top.
PL/SQL GOTO Syntax Documentation Example

OTN – Oracle Technology Network Official Link

Oracle’s sponsored community framework. Blogs, message boards, white papers, all the non-sales stuff a technical user would want access to. I don’t actively post too much on the message boards, but I do read them quite frequently. I would post more, but I’m afraid my Quest/Toad persona might be a bit distracting.

AskTom Official Link
Want to know how to do something, how to solve a complex PL/SQL or even SQL puzzle? Odds are that Tom Kyte has answered the question several times over. If you use this site, please search the existing library before you ask how to only see the ‘top X results from my query.’ Tom doesn’t mind having a little fun at your expense, but he has a true passion for helping folks. It’s hard to imagine many VPs out there that devote this much time to helping us ‘little folks.’

Tom also had a dedicated column in the official Oracle Magazine.

Trivia: This site was recently re-launched and runs on Oracle’s Application Express (APEX) platform. Think that PL/SQL is a dead language? Think again!

Blog: Inside the Oracle Optimizer Official Link
Many people think of SQL tuning and reading execution plans to be a mix of magic and math. The magic comes into play because of our unfamiliarity with Oracle’s internal query optimizer. It’s all really just math though. If you really want to understand how your simple request for data gets transformed into a elegant relational algebra mathematic series of steps, then you should read this stuff.

Oracle Magazine
The AskTom and Steven Feuerstein columns are must-reads. I enjoy reading the professional spotlight biographies as well. And the issues are available on-line!

Unofficial or non-Oracle Sanctioned Sites

Steven’s O’Reilly Book Series on PL/SQL The Complete List
OK, so maybe I’m name dropping a little bit. If you do not know Steven Feuerstein by name, you probably own or have at least seen his books. Steven started as a PreSales engineer at Oracle back when SQL*Plus was the big game in town. He moved into PL/SQL and started writing, presenting, and inventing. A lot of his code/technology and advice is available for free on-line. Steven is the closest thing to a celebrity in the Oracle world who he doesn’t own a yacht.

Oracle-Base
Articles. On everything. For every Oracle Database Release. With examples. Written for the n00b and expert. All by one guy – Oracle ACE Director Tim Hall. He used to run Forums, but they’re closed now. But Google will find good stuff between his articles, blogs, and archived forum posts. A great presenter as well, you can find Tim speaking around the world. If he’s near you, don’t miss it.

People I follow on Twitter

I follow around 240 folks on Twitter…actually, make that 1,535 people. They’re not all Oracle nerds. Instead of calling folks out individually, I created a Twitter List. So if you’re looking to jump start on Twitter, then try out these folks.

It’s not quite complete…I think I upset Twitter’s sensitive little API cap as it won’t let me add anyone else at the moment.

StackOverflow

All of the Stacks. Just do a keyword search, ‘Oracle.’ I’m seeing most Oracle related Google searches are coming back with Stack answers. And from what I can tell, most are very GOOD answers.

Reddit

A good place to hang out if you want to help folks.

Oracle-L

Ready to go old-school? It’s a mailing list. But it’s great. I mostly listen and learn.