Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Database Programming with Visual C++ 6 in 21 Days

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I'm amazed to see those negative feedbacks below. I have over 10 years of C/C++ programming experience. And I found this book very useful. I didn't buy this book myself, I saw it at my friend's house. This is a very clearly and professioanlly written book on C++ database programming. I agree with the author, people who find this book hard to read or inaccurate should work on their C++ windows programming basics. I recommend them Jessie Liberty's "Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days",and Horton's "Visual C++ 6.0", or if you already know some VC++, read "Programming Windows" 99 edition. After finishing those books, maybe this book will seem more useful. I knew C++ database programming before already, and I really do not have that much criticism for this book.However I want to point out one thing, 570 pages are far from enough to cover all aspects of C++ Windows database programming. But as one of the "21 Days" book, this is really of good quality. If you want to study all the aspects in depth, you have to figure them out on your own, because there are not that many good and advanced books on this subject. After reading an intro and one or two more advanced books, you are on your own, that's how we all learned.

This is a great book if you have MFC programming experience but very little database knowledge. It's as if the book was written for me. It's easy to read and it's a great introduction to database programming. You'll learn about SQL, ODBC, OLE DB, ADO, etc. I'll admit that I used to get mind-boggled by this "acronymic hell", but this book gives a great overview and everything finally makes sense. It helps if you have some understanding of COM (ie: what it is and what it's for), but it's not required as it's covered in later chapters. The author presents pros and cons of many different database technologies and provides clear programming examples. Obviously the other reviewers that complained about the examples didn't bother *reading* the book. Some of the examples require that you modify the code depending on where you've installed the sample files. However, these guys probably thought they could learn everything about database programming by cutting and pasting the example code into their programs. I would think that if you're going to buy a book, you should seriously consider reading what's inside...especially if you intend to add "database programmer" to your resume. Duh!

Reviewer: Jan David Narkiewicz, jann@lomaprieta.com

This text lives up to its title. It spans all aspects of database development with Visual C++ 6.0 (ADO, OLE/DB, MTS, COM, ODBC, developer studio overview, database/SQL overview and multi-tiered architecture overview). The text even provides historical perspective through ODBC, ODBC through MFC, DAO, RDS, etc.

You are provided with the big picture from native SQL and ODBC up through OLE/DB to ADO and client-side data access. Special emphasis is placed on ADO and OLE/DB, but care is taken to review each aspect of database development (including design and programming language considerations). This is the only C++ text to cover this spectrum of material.

I am both a software developer and an instructor at U.C. Berkeley, Extension and U.C. Santa Cruz, Extension. My most recent course offering is entitled "ActiveX Database Programming." This course covers ADO, RDS and OLE/DB. My course text is "Database Programming with Visual C++ 6.0." I would not make my students buy a book unless it was stellar.

I do have a criticism of this text, namely that it is too short. Yes it is a fantastic overview with some nice drill down. I wanted another 200 pages on OLE/DB another 100 pages on ADO. Multidimensional data and asynchronous access could have been presented. To be fair, the text is nearly 600 pages long. I wanted 900 pages, which is a tribute to the text.

This is certainly an excellent book to do database programming. It is well written and easy to understand. It also covers a lot of database technologies such as ADO and OLEDB. The examples are working fine. But you must know how to generate MFC project using wizard, as well as adding codes in the functions it generates. The previous reviewer cannot make programs work perhaps they don't know MFC at all. It is a book for intermediate users, not for ones without knowledge of MFC.

I had a really hard time obtaining this book. For some reason, the publisher seems to have stopped printing it. The most recent edition was printed in 1999, so it is not that old. It really is a wonderful book. It does what I need most from a programming book - it explains a concept and then walks you through how to do it step by step. The book is extremely hands-on. After much searching, I was finally able to locate the book by means of an online used/out of print bookstore.

Another thing I like about the book is that it uses Access as the database for all of the exercises. While SQL Server is important to learn, using it introduces another set of connection problems that you don't get with Access. I liked being able to learn the C++ database concepts without that extra level of headache.

The book covers all the major database topics in a way that is thorough and easy to understand. And most importantly, it shows you how to actually use the stuff. It is worth the struggle to obtain it.

I am about half way through the book and have not had any serious problems with the author's code examples. I have about 18 years of mainframe programming experience, but I have taken only one "Intro to C++" course at the local JuCo. I found Mr. Robison's descriptions of how to use Visual/C++ to be exact and have had very little trouble completing the examples. I feel that I could do most of what I want (be able to use a simple Access DB in my program) after reading through Chapter 6. I have read a lot of programming books over the years, and this one does an excellent job of walking you through the material.

If you're reasonably experienced with C++ (in the Windows realm) but lacking in knowledge of the latest Microsoft database technologies, this is a terrific book to buy. I found the examples to be helpful, and the way the book is written makes it seem like you have a Guru right over your shoulder helping you along.

I strongly disagree with the negative reviews presented on this book; I found the text to be accurate and informative and the text covered a variety of useful topics. Those who had trouble getting the demonstrations to work properly may want to brush up on their basics* a bit, although this book doesn't require overly extensive knowledge of MFC.

* (Such as actually stepping through the code to see that the problem was your fault.)

Among all the books talking about OLE DB, this one explained it the best. The author not only talks about how but also why. I would even recommend the charpter on COM to a friend who starts to learn COM.

The code doesn't work ! Half of the book teaches you SQL. IfI had wanted to know how to write SQL statements I would have boughtanother book! I am being more productive with Microsoft's Tutorial. The minimum rate is 1 star but I'd give it -5 stars. The negative (not even 0) is due to the waste of my time also !

This is a very nice book for C++ database programming. The contents in Day 1 is especially useful for us. As many C++ programmer tend to reinvent their own database (wheel), the day 1's subject is very important. The rest of the book is also well written and very practical.

I recommend this book because if a C++ programmer mastered database technology, he may increase his income by 50 to 100 percent. Don't let VB programmers with database knowledge alone make 5 figures income, while you, an experienced C++ programmer, works much harder and make much less money. Buying this book is the new start of your career.