Mark P. said
Don't let the one star reviewer put you off. This is a good book available at a bargain 2nd-hand price. The joke below about fitting this content into a book of 250 pages shows that another reviewer doesn't know what he's talking about. But the examples are a bit OTT as the case studies are large so there's a bit of repetition. It could probably have been shrunk to about 700 pages (rather than 900) with smaller (kiddy type) case studies. Likewise it's not possible to overdo normalization - just because some so-called professionals don't bother with it as much as they should is no reason why a beginner shouldn't learn best practice.
The writer assumes that you already know Visual Basic 6 so doesn't cover much VB code. The focus is on SQL Server 7 stored procedures which are professionally done.
The "Beginning" title is a bit misleading too. This is a book for serious programmers who, although still beginners, want to be good - not for hackers.
The book is well made with hardly any errors that I've spotted and the code examples work.
I recommend Vieira's two books as well - on SQL Server 7 and 2000.
4 stars only (nearly 5) - the case studies are a little larger than need be.
Anonymous said
I guess an 860 page book sells better than a 250 page book, that
would explain all needless pages in this book!
This book repeats and repeats the same description of the code
over and over and over...
Not to many authors are smart enought to realize when you
teach something keep it as simple as possible ( no charge for the tip to you authors out there.)
For example don't include a column for address1 , address2
and address3 and then write code to test if address2 and address3
are NULL. The Address1 column is enough to get the point across. This kind of "filler" only distracts from the main point of learning ADO and SQL.
And the Author over does normalization - you would be looked
at as a rank novice if you did this type of "over" normilization
in professional code.
Book would get 4 stars if it was not filled with so much
fluff and filler and fluff and filler ....
Darrell Nungester said
I own 2 books written by Thearon Willis, this book and "Beginning SQL Server 2000 for Visual Basic Developers". Both books are excellent. Combining this book and Rob Vieira's "Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming", I got a very knowledgeable skill set that combines Visual Basic 6.0/5.0, SQL Server 7.0 and RDO/DAO. If you have to maintain applications written in Visual Basic 6.0 and earlier or if the database is SQL Server 7.0, you will want to read this book. Please note: if you want to use latest ADO, you may have make some minor modifications to the examples in this books.
Dan Alustiza said
I've been a software engineer for just over 20 years now, and to this date, this author is by far, the most talented author, I've encountered. The book covers all that is required, for a Visual Basic developer, to learn the tasks associated with building applications for Visual Basic using SQL. With other books, it never failed that the author would leave something important out, when demonstrating a technique, but the author of this book, Thearon Willis, covers everything, down to the intimate detail. Thearon also has reminders through out the book, that remind the reader not to forget to do something, that may have already been covered. I believe the author has the ability to convey upon the reader, in an understandable manner, like no other author has.
Many Thanks
selffate said
Thearon Willis's approach is pretty straight forward, and that's what I like. In short this book gets a solid positive review and has minor peeves.
In short this is a great intro to SQL server 7. Good use of explaining triggers, and stored procedures. Most important the examples are REAL WORLD BUSINESS examples that you can use. So many other books get you to do things that are totaly useless.
While I wouldn't design and interface like he did, or make the tables, as such, and I did find his stored procedures a bit overly lengthy, it's still a great book to get started on and has a lot of usefull stuff. Knowing VB helps but not neccesary and is of course not concentrated on either..
solid 4, Another good Wrox book.
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