Customer Reviews

Practical LotusScript

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

 

 

As a beginning developer I was trying to do everything with formulas because I found LotusScript a mystery. The book has unravelled the mystery in a very clear and logical way. The first few chapters explain the structure of LotusScript and are enough to get you comfortable using it. Later chapters give you hints and ideas of how to use more advanced scripting. I'm now using LotusScript without fear. The appendix, which contains a full description of classes, properties and methods is fantastic. I never bother with the on-line help now - I go straight to the book if I want to know what class to use, or which property/method will do the job.

It is a step by stpe learning guide. It will give you enough background to start coding right away. This one and the online help are the only tools you need.

I was starting at zero-level, and now after two week I'm developing myown Agents under LotusScript. Hoped to receive further informationsabout the classes and programming the API under LotusScript. Good for beinners, a lot of good examples. NOT for furhter informations about the API, or the classes. As beginner, but familiar with C++ and Java, easy to start, if you have NO exerience in LotusScript, but if you are familiar with lotus notes.

I bought this book over a month ago and it has served me well in the way information is organized and presented. It would help if the Author covered a little more advanced sections on OLE Automation, NotesPump classes as well as ODBC. I find this book very resourceful even though I already have the 60 minute guide, the yellow books, the red books .. mainly because of the elegant presentation style of the Author. All example code has line by line explanations which help to understand the code easily.

Sid Bagali Principal CLP R4 Application Developer CLP R4 System Administrator

If you're looking for a good book on LotusScript, you may end up choosing this one, mainly because there's not much out there.

The author obviously knows his stuff, but he's not a very inspired writer, and his editor is either technically incompetent or careless, because there are lots and lots of errors in the book. This is more forgiveable in the general text of the book, but in the code it can be very very annoying, especially if you're new to LotusScript and don't know enough about it to recognize the error.

If you like a no-nonsense approach to learning a language, where the author simply outlines the basics and the most important things beyond the basics, then you'll like the approach. He does a good job selecting the material and covering in a clear way. He does know his stuff and can explain it pretty well. If not for the errors I'd easily give it four stars.

But if you really like O'Reilly books and the O'Reilly style of presenting information (the over-the-shoulder explanation, as I think Tim O'Reilly calls it) then you'll find this very dry and disappointing.

If you know enough LotusScript to spot mistakes easily, or if you think of it as a challenge to debug the author's code, then you won't find the bad editing to be a problem. Otherwise, avoid this like the plague.

It's better than reading the Developer Help that comes with Notes, and it certainly helped my LotusScript coding abilities, but I eventually got frustrated with things not working and returned it.

So in a nutshell: if you can find anything else good, get it instead. Otherwise, you may be stuck without a better alternative.

Before I bought this book, I did not know anything about LotusScript nor Visual Basic. Now I feel confident when creating scripts in forms and databases.

I think this is a really good book for someone who has a little prior programmming knowledge and wants to learn lotusscript.

Also wanted to point out that all the errors that were mentioned in previous reviews seem to have been corrected in later prints - the copy I was sent in Aug 2002, has, as far as I can see, incorporated all the errors mentioned on the publishers web site.

I am relatively new (3 months) both to Lotus Notes and to LotusScript but have been thoroughly comfortable with various computer languages for many years.

The decision to purchase this book was strongly influenced by the generally positive reviews but, sad to say, I have to agree with the negative view. There are rather too many typos but my main grumble is that, having laboriously copied some of the examples into a database used for self-training, too many (six of 13 tried so far) fail to work. This does nothing for confidence or skill development!

If you're looking for an unfrustrating quick start to LotusScript, this is not it.

I really like this book as it is a roadmap to learning LotusScript. A lot of the other books I have looked at seemed far too technical whereas this one breaks down the subjecy matter well.

A key for me were the explanations, a lot of books fail to explain what exactly is going on with the examples they give the reader. The examples given in this book are very useful and I am already using them to increase the functionality of my applications.

I give it 4 stars as there were quite a few typos which I do not forgive readily. A great book nontheless and I will probably by Patton's other book Domino Development with Java when I am done with this one!

I browsed through it for 30 minutes at a bookstore and definitely want to get it, but I'll save the money myself and buy it through work. I need the chapters on events and subforms in particular. I, too, have yellow books, redbooks, Inside LotusScript, and Teach Yourself LotusScript. It was well written, clear, and well organized in my browse, and will help in the applications I have in progress.