Customer Reviews

Oracle Forms Developer's Handbook

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

My first impressions of this book is that it is hastily put together both in printing and content. On my copy, the print quality is poor.

One of the most important devices in a good handbook is the index. The index of this book is sparse to say the least, with most of the built in functions and triggers not directly indexed at all, so that you have to trawl through the book sequentially to find the things you are looking for.

On the my first reference to a built in function, I found a glaring error. The very first page I looked at contained an obvious contradiction. I have not yet had enough exposure to the rest of the book to say if that error is out of character, though I would hope it is.

I would say that as it has its place as a book to aid learning, but falls a long way short when used as a reference to an experienced forms developer.

Lulushi did a wonderful job in laying out this book. He explains the basics simply - in all cases giving numerous examples. The reader is lead from building her first form all the way to putting some meaningful database form modules on the web. This is a great reference book in addition to an extremely AWEsome tutorial. All in all a great addition to my library. I am an Oracle Certified Professional DBA and am having a hard time keeping this book on my shelf - Both my users and fellow DBAs have become enamored with this one (Perhaps, I should buy another copy and hide it!). This book covers all the improvements that are in the 6i release! As Oracle puts it: "The web changes everything!". Thank you Albert. A great follow up to your Forms 5.0 book. Keep'em coming.....

Listen Software Solutions: I bought the book to prepare me for an Oracle Forms and Report test. The book took three days to read. The code samples were very helpful. The content is very rigorous and academic. Lulushi starts with a simple Forms sample. It seemed trival, but it built my confidence. I believed the remainder of the book to be good. The first few chapters explain the Developer 2000 environment: Navigator, Layout Wizard, Menu Editor (I need this information and found it to be valuable), and Library Editor. I found the section on subclassing and reusable object difficult to apply. In theory the chapters made sense, but I needed a few simple samples to understand the practical application. About half way into the book the author really takes off: data and control blocks, frames, relationships, canvas, menus, and windows provide a good basic understanding of code development. This was great. I was bored. I found the last portion of the book on triggers very enlightening. However, I'll admit its pretty complex. I've taken Oracle Instructed courses for Oracle Forms/Reports and I found the book was very suppliment. I used Lulushi book to deeper insight into how code for Developer 2000. Lulushi uses a layering effect to teach the principles of Developer 2000. As I read further into the book, the more complex the layers became. He didn't try to overwhelm with every detail at the beginning of the book. He demonstrated a mastery of tool and language.

The style of this book is mostly a dry enumeration of facts plus a set of extremely detailed tutorials. By extremely detailed, I mean something on the order of "click this button, this window appears, select this option, etc..".

This is just all wrong for me. What I look for in a good technical book is an explanation of concepts following a logical progression of ideas. The target audience of this book are professional programmers but it reads like a user's manual for non-technical people.

This book can serve to acquaint you with the various features and tools available in Oracle Forms. But if your aim is to become adept with Forms, this book barely gets you started towards that goal.

5/16/2003
I've had this book for a while now and I've hardly used it. I'm downgrading my rating to 1 star because it was a complete waste of money. I've had more success referring to the oracle forms help files or simply figuring things out by myself.

This book does not come with CD. But inside story indicates about companion software. There is a web site mentioned inside the book to download software or material. Till today, 10/10/01 this web site is not working. I sent email to publisher and the author. Author email address has same problem (not working). Publisher said sorry to me and assure that they will contact author soon. But do I get my time and money back.

This is a tutorial, NOT a reference. As an experienced Oracle/IT professional, trying to learn Oracle Forms from this book has been extemely frustrating. The author is verbose rather than concise. Important information about a single topic may be spread across several sections making it difficult to get an answer to a specific question. As another reviewer stated, the index is weak. The author offers many warnings and tips that I eventually learned to test out for myself because, in a lot of cases, were just plain not true. There are tutorials on OOP, SQL, and PL/SQL that are tedious if you already have that background. I'd reccomend this book only for someone with little Oracle background who has a lot of time and patience.

The book is full of typos and mistakes in the code examples. Even with that the book has been helpful in some situations but hard to use. It is written like a huge tutorial and if you don't get something in the previous section, the next section doesn't work. I just want to know how to do the code. I want specific examples that aren't dependent on other parts of the book. Why can't there be more books on this subject to choose from?

A refence book without a good index becomes a novel you have to skim through. I had to do this on several occasions. What is sad is that the Table of Contents was pretty in depth (17 pages which is more than the index). When I need an answer I want a place in the book that will point me somewhere near the item I'm looking for. I was lucky because I had read the thing from cover to cover, so I had a general idea where to look. It covers the various form elements in advanced, but I could have gotten the same data from a help file.

It would have been more useful with a better index. I found the downloadable sample files, but why not have a CD? Not recommended for the beginning Oracle user.

A great book to read and understand, but the support from author is bad. Still I would recommend this book.

I am a beginner in Oracle Forms and Reports. I bought this book as a supplement to the class I am taking. The book talks about companion software, but there is no CD. It turned out to be downloadable SQL/PL*SQL scripts to be installed in my environment (You must have Oracle Developer client, not Windows environment, installed on your pc with permissions to create databases and tables, etc.) and run those scripts to setup the databases and tables. Very limited index doesn't help any more than my teacher, who puts up a Powerpoint presentation in the class and basically reads through each slide without much of an explanation for anything.

I may return this book if I find a better book.