Customer Reviews

Palm Database Programming: The Complete Developer's Guide

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

 

 

Databases can be wonderful things. Learning about them should be made fun, especially on Palm of all platforms!

This book fails in three ways:

1. It does does a rush job on "How to Program for Palm" (a subject better left to a more general book), It's about 100 pages that could be better spent on the title topic.

2. The introduction to relational databases is terrible. It is basically the most densely packed 20 pages I've ever seen and is so fact-packed and example-deficient as to be worthless, leaving the reader scared about real database systems.

3. The author (a Sybase employee) then dedicates the rest of the book to Sybase's push into the market. (A token mini-chapter on Oracle Lite exists only to contrast Sybase's better implementation.)

The book does, to its credit, include a detailed treatment on the internal Palm database format. However, for the cover price of this book:

1. Invest in a better Palm book that covers this format.

2. Check Sybase's website and download the book's included software there if you want to check out their package.

3. If you are really interested in databases, pick up a good introduction to Relational databases such as "Database Management Systems" by Ramakrishnan.

This book needs revised.

Apart from an indepth coverage of CodeWarrior and C programming for Palm O/S and Sybase Ultralite, the bulk of the information provided in this book is either obsolete or redundant. The Oracle Lite Consolidator example in the book is outdated since Consolidator has been replaced with iConnect in the most recent version of OLite. In addition, no mention is made of SatForms' solution for data synchronization.

This book is a must for everyone interested in programming with Palm C based SDK. Eric goes into a great detail to get your up to speed with this things. And they are tricky!
If you are seriously interested in Palm OS, get it!

This book was a great book for myself, who wanted to venture into palm programming, from my other programming background. found the program examples excellent, and the nuts and bolts coverage excellent from a programmer new to the Palm Device. The author has struck a good balance, and focused on the main portion of Palm Database Programming, and not cluttering the book, with obscure topics that would be more useful in a book unto it's own. Ed Szalajeski

What's interesting is that the book still holds its value despite being two years old. What I really like about it is that the author from the beginning focuses on peculiarities of Palm OS platform. And they are many! In no other book did I see such a deep overview of what is possible with Palm OS SDK. Eric clearly explains what can be done and what should not be done with Palm OS.
If you are serious about writing professional C/C++ code for Palm OS then get this book. It's a must!

This book has been very helpful to me. This technology is still sort of immature. Giguere's book helped me reduce my learning time quite a bit. I highly recommend it to people that require a good concise jump-start.

This book not only covers UltraLite as mentioned by the author, but it also covers the Palm database API. It's the only book that I've found so far that covers DmReleaseRecord's most important side effect (what happens to record indexes after removing a record).

A well written developer text that is well worth the money. If you need to quickly get up to speed on Palm Databases and/or Palm development, this is a book that you will want to read from cover-to-cover.

Please don't be fooled by the title of the book. It says 'The Complete Developer's Guide'. I can not see a book more incomplete in the topic it promises to discuss. It doesn't cover a single useful thing, if you have at least gone once through the SDK and the companion. If you are from India, please don't waste your precious money buying this book, for you will get a whole lot more benefit from Palm OS programming Bible which is in Indian print. After some paltry introduction into Palm and telling you how to open and create a database, the author jumps to show you what an RDBMS and Sybase is. The author bravely introduces RDBMS. I wonder who on earth will be picking this book up to know what RDBMS is. If you are looking for some serious developing this book is not for you. I, for one, is extremely disappointed with this book. Well to add, I have nothing against Mr.Eric. I may still consider buying a book by him, if he comes out with a decent one.

An extremely superficial coverage of Palm Database programming. If you're truly looking to program databases in Palm OS, don't get this book, as it really won't get you there. It appears the book was sent to the publisher while being only 1/2 or 1/3 finished.