Customer Reviews

Powerbuilder 5: A Developer's Guide

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

 

 

This book continues the tradition of large margins, lots of screenprints that don't reflect what the IDE actually does, and not giving the information you need where you need it. For example, on page 722 under the heading "Distributing Applications," McClanahan writes, "An important fact that you may not be aware of is that you must distribute a set of PowerBuilder DLLs with your EXE files." He then proceeds NOT to tell you what those files are, leaving you to your own devices. Gee, thanks David.

I am still looking for a good introduction to Power Builder, but this isn't it. Perhaps for someone with extensive experience in another very similar visual tool, this would do as an only reference. However, it is of little use to someone attempting to learn the environment and the PowerBuilder methodology. For example, I have worked my way through almost 500 hundred pages and still have not seen how to connect a data window object to a data window control or how to bind and script the control with a program. Since these (amongst other missing) concepts are key to fishin' with PowerBuilder, the reader is left cuttin' bait.

We used McClanahan's Developer's Guide for the training of our entire staff when converting programmers to client/server development with Powerbuilder. Most of the programmers became certified Powerbuilder developers using only this book.I have purchased and read most of the PowerBuilder books, and this is easily the most informative and pratical introduction. Every concept is explained with a working code example. A number of typos, all minor and obvious. Advanced concepts are explained in more detail than most of the "advanced" PowerBuilder books

McClanahan's book provides a less than adequate introduction to the features of PowerBuilder 5; much of the book reads like a copy of the PowerBuilder Help files. Also, the number of typographical errors is extremely high - sentences are left incomplete, references to figures are incorrect, controls are referenced by incorrect names, etc.
You would think that someone also responsible for teaching PowerBuilder classes would take the time to ensure that the material which he presented in his book lived up to the highest standards!

I am an experienced Foxpro 2.6 programmer changing to PowerBuilder. This book was written at just the right level for a programmer switching to this environment. My experience programming in FoxPro made the transfer to PowerBuilder very easy. The book is written in a very easy logical order with excellent examples.

I also program in dBASE5 for DOS and if this was the only language I programmed in I would find this book very difficult to follow. The reader must have experience in a windows environment to really understand the topics covered.

This book is definetly for advanced programmers only!