Connor McDonald

Connor McDonald has worked with Oracle since the early nineties, cutting his teeth on Oracle versions 6.0.36 and 7.0.12. Over the past 11 years Connor has worked with systems in Australia, the UK, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and the U.S.. He has come to realize that although the systems and methodologies around the world are very diverse, there tends to be two common themes in the development of Oracle -- either to steer away from the Oracle-specific functions, or to use them in a haphazard or less then optimal fashion. It was this observation that led to the creation of a personal hints and tips website: (http://www.oracledba.co.uk) and to do more presenting on the Oracle speaker circuit in an endeavor to improve the perception and usage of PL/SQL in the industry. Like so many other development professionals, getting involved with Oracle was a transition - from developing mainframe/Cobol systems to the "client server revolution". As we now know, this was the "wrong" revolution and of course the Internet is the "right" revolution. And this is no more evident than in the use of PL/SQL, which in Connor's opinion, has been not so much "used" as "abused" in many of the systems he's been asked to assist with. Being a developer of client-based code with tools such as Oracle Forms and server-based code has led to his passion for PL/SQL, a passion Connor wants to share in writing this book.