Rating: 
Summary: Great Book - Covers/Compares ADO RDO
Review: As a "junior developer", I have been given my biggest VB project yet. I was a little nervous when we decided to use ORACLE for the DBMS, since I had never worked with ORACLE before. I needed a reference that specifically covered VB programming with ORACLE. This book is EXACTLY what I needed, and the only one I could find. Half of the book gives an overview of ORACLE (designed for developers who haven't worked with ORACLE), the other half covers the various connection methods (ADO/RDO). This book has already saved me a great deal of time. It's well written, with great code examples. I only wish there had been someway to include codes samples on a CD ROM. Overall - TERRIFIC.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book - Covers/Compares ADO RDO
Review: As a "junior developer", I have been given my biggest VB project yet. I was a little nervous when we decided to use ORACLE for the DBMS, since I had never worked with ORACLE before. I needed a reference that specifically covered VB programming with ORACLE. This book is EXACTLY what I needed, and the only one I could find. Half of the book gives an overview of ORACLE (designed for developers who haven't worked with ORACLE), the other half covers the various connection methods (ADO/RDO). This book has already saved me a great deal of time. It's well written, with great code examples. I only wish there had been someway to include codes samples on a CD ROM. Overall - TERRIFIC.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book for VB & Oracle connectivity but...
Review: Excellent book for VB & Oracle connectivity but skimps sleightly (and is actually wrong) on obtaining data from a stored procedure. Otherwise it covers all connectivity aspects. I was able to type in all code examples exactly as stated and make the VB front end work.
Rating:
Summary: Nick Snowdon saved my Life!
Review: I absolutely love the way the author gives an overview of each data acces technology followed by a "Typical Code" segment that gives a simple but adiquate sample of no b/s connection and data retrieval code. This alone earns the $32.00 but he goes on to give great detail on ADO, RDO, OO OLE etc. This book has become my number one refernce for RDO, ADO although I have many VB Books; simply beacuse it cuts to the chase. Not to mention; The Oracle foundation set in the first 10 chapters is as good as it gets without turning the book into a 2000 page Oracle textbook. (The PL/SQL section is actually pretty comprehensive)Other reviews said the writting style was dry but the author simply gets to the point in each area. There is no wasted space or fluff. I also appreciated the technique comparisons for optimizing data access for your given situation. I realy wish other programming books would use this layering writing style where the concepts are introduced lightly in dedicated pre-chapters (more than just a quick paragraph) and then presented in complete detail in later chapters. This way you can refernce each technology based on whether you need a quick (but adiquate)overview of code structure and object models or a comprehensive analysis of the methods etc. After reading this book an intermediate VB programer can start building solid VB front ends (and more)for Oracle. I hope Nick comes out with an updated book with the new MS technologies that support Oracle. Thanks Nick!
Rating:
Summary: Nick Snowdon saved my Life!
Review: I absolutely love the way the author gives an overview of each data acces technology followed by a "Typical Code" segment that gives a simple but adiquate sample of no b/s connection and data retrieval code. This alone earns the $32.00 but he goes on to give great detail on ADO, RDO, OO OLE etc. This book has become my number one refernce for RDO, ADO although I have many VB Books; simply beacuse it cuts to the chase. Not to mention; The Oracle foundation set in the first 10 chapters is as good as it gets without turning the book into a 2000 page Oracle textbook. (The PL/SQL section is actually pretty comprehensive)Other reviews said the writting style was dry but the author simply gets to the point in each area. There is no wasted space or fluff. I also appreciated the technique comparisons for optimizing data access for your given situation. I realy wish other programming books would use this layering writing style where the concepts are introduced lightly in dedicated pre-chapters (more than just a quick paragraph) and then presented in complete detail in later chapters. This way you can refernce each technology based on whether you need a quick (but adiquate)overview of code structure and object models or a comprehensive analysis of the methods etc. After reading this book an intermediate VB programer can start building solid VB front ends (and more)for Oracle. I hope Nick comes out with an updated book with the new MS technologies that support Oracle. Thanks Nick!
Rating:
Summary: Nick Snowdon saved my Life!
Review: I absolutely love the way the author gives an overview of each data acces technology followed by a "Typical Code" segment that gives a simple but adiquate sample of no b/s connection and data retrieval code. This alone earns the $32.00 but he goes on to give great detail on ADO, RDO, OO OLE etc. This book has become my number one refernce for RDO, ADO although I have many VB Books; simply beacuse it cuts to the chase. Not to mention; The Oracle foundation set in the first 10 chapters is as good as it gets without turning the book into a 2000 page Oracle textbook. (The PL/SQL section is actually pretty comprehensive)Other reviews said the writting style was dry but the author simply gets to the point in each area. There is no wasted space or fluff. I also appreciated the technique comparisons for optimizing data access for your given situation. I realy wish other programming books would use this layering writing style where the concepts are introduced lightly in dedicated pre-chapters (more than just a quick paragraph) and then presented in complete detail in later chapters. This way you can refernce each technology based on whether you need a quick (but adiquate)overview of code structure and object models or a comprehensive analysis of the methods etc. After reading this book an intermediate VB programer can start building solid VB front ends (and more)for Oracle. I hope Nick comes out with an updated book with the new MS technologies that support Oracle. Thanks Nick!
Rating:
Summary: Bridge between VB and Oracle
Review: I bought this book when I was in India. I carried only this When I came to US. Really the basic and advanced concepts of oracle architecture and VB programming are explained very well. A good book for our Library. All VB programmers must have this Book for their oracle reference. This book also covers ADO extensively. Good Work by the Author.
Rating:
Summary: Wow, everything I was looking for.
Review: I recently began work at a new company, which uses ORACLE. I was quite experienced with VB, but had not used Oracle before. When they asked for VB front ends I was floundering until I obtained this book. Now I feel that I have a solid understanding of ORACLE and an in depth knowledge of VB's data access abilities. The discussions in this book are first rate (fairly neutral) and the writing style is dry (it is a computer book) but detailed. The book has a VERY large section devoted just to ORACLE (about half). This gives a solid foundation to databases, and the processes of ORACLE. The last half is devoted to using VB to utilise Oracle. I thought that the book would be 100% on VB utilisation of ORACLE. The only bad part about this book was that a Microsoft employee wrote the forward. Why would they get someone from a company that is in opposition to ORACLE (even if in many cases not directly) to write the forward???
Rating:
Summary: Good current overview of the interaction VB and Oracle.
Review: I think this is the only book dedicated solely to the interaction of VB and Oracle. Seems to be an update and extension of the author's 1997 VBPJ article. This books appears overly verbose at times. I look forward to a new article based on this book! Takes the reader from beginner to medium level programmer, doesn't seem to be particularly advanced. One or two programming errors should have been discovered by the book's reviewers e.g. listing 17.11 has duplicate variable definitions. More code examples would be welcomed, together with more suggestions on the prefered 'solution' to interacting with Oracle from VB. A good effort.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book to come up to speed on Oracle/VB
Review: I'm relatively experienced with VB and accessing databases although I had never connected to an Oracle DB. With a new project starting, I had to come up to speed. This book showed me how much I didn't know what I thought I knew. It felt like it was written just for me - from the perspective of someone who has been happily accessing jet db's and thinking the every db works that way. Now I understand how the "big boys" work and this information has proved invaluable in my project. Highly recommened.
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