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Summary: My opinion is...
Review: ... this is a very good book, for beginners like me. It's nor a manual neither a reference. It contains a lot of examples and overall ideas to deal with and think about. There are solutions applied to real problems. That's why I like it: a practical manual with theory inside you learn with no effort. And it's written in english; no slang, technical word where necessary only. It's important for people speaking non english languages. Thanks Rick.
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Summary: DEFINITELY DEFINITIVE
Review: After reading some *low* reviews of this book, i thought i just might have to throw in my thought about this book too. First, I have read a lot of books in powerbuilder, but none of them comes close in describing the DW as this book. Secondly, this book is cleanly\professionally written as guide\reference. So, if you're a beginner\intermediate level programmer, this book provides a very good starting point not just for dw but for pb programming in general. Thirdly, it is comprehensive. It touches the important properties of the DW. At the end, it touches the creation of a dw object that every seasoned pb programmer should know. The author, however, doesn't touch the more delicate side of PFC in relation to DWs or creating your own DW using other FCs; maybe, in the next version or the next volume, like, DW Programming -Advanced. I am hoping ;)
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Summary: Great book!
Review: As an intermediate level PowerBuilder developer, I found this book to be very helpful. Thank you for your insight into even more datawindow functionality.
Rating: 
Summary: Not impressed
Review: I agree with Mr. Boyes. Having borrowed a copy of this book, I count myself fortunate I didn't pay for it. It is a basic tutorial for novices, without a clue on "where do we go from here?". The technical information appears to be a regurgitation of machanics availble from many other sources. Nothing new here...a basic anthology of known methods. I seriously wonder how many of these reviews were written by the author himself?
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Summary: Finally a book just on the DataWindow
Review: I buy a lot of PowerBuilder books. I'll consider just about any PowerBuilder book that I find. Ever since I picked up my first PowerBuilder book I have done the same thing -- turn to the Table of Contents and see how many pages are dedicated to the DataWindow. After doing this for many years it occurred to me that it is time for a book completely dedicated to this object. In fact, to my knowledge, this is the first time that any book has ever been written about a single object in a programming language. A whole book on this one object!This book was almost two years in the making. It started out as a simple little book with a couple hundred pages. After all, how much detail can there be about a single object in a computer language? Well, it soon became obvious that I was so very wrong in my estimation of the scope of this project. First of all, to really be a master of this DataWindow object you simply must understand SQL. You can't have too much of an understanding of SQL. The better your understanding the better your DataWindows are going to be. I have personally caused DataWindows retrieve in minutes rather than hours simply by changing the SQL. Understanding Data Modeling and the appropriate use of Relational Integrity could make those same DataWindows retrieve in seconds. I turned to the best SQL master that I know for help in this area, Alexis Leon. He has written quite a few books on SQL, Data Modeling, and Oracle in particular. After I edited Alexis' work I already had about a hundred pages -- without even starting an explanation of the DataWindow. Once beyond the SQL stuff I realized that I had to explain the Database Painter as well. After all, a master DataWindow programmer will in fact need to be able to set up the defaults and conventions for DataWindow development. That is done in the Database Painter. There was another 70 pages or so and still I hadn't even begun the DataWindow. That the DataWindow is the most important object in PowerBuilder is indisputable. This was true with version 1 and remains true with version 7. In fact, this object is so very important that Sybase has extended its use to their Java compiler and their web site development tool. Without a complete understanding of this object your skills with PowerBuilder, PowerJ, and PowerSite are lacking. Considering the importance of the object I felt that I simply had to do it justice. A brief overview simply would not suffice. Two years later the project was done. My goal of 200 pages has become a sweet dream, replaced with this monster more than five times as much as I originally expected. In this book I cover all the beginner and intermediate information and dip significantly into advanced. It turned out that I needed hundreds of illustrations and hundreds of code examples. Those code examples alone are important. I didn't want to just give any old example. I wanted to give examples culled directly from working applications that served a real need. So many hours were spent going through my source code for past projects trying to find just the right example for my point. I cover some of the more sticky topics in great detail. Graphing, traditionally a difficult thing to learn got its own chapter as did Edit Styles and Formats. Basically this book reflects what I would do if I were to sit down with a beginning programmer and teach him the DataWindow.
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Summary: Thanks Again Rick (Even if I didn't get my free copy)
Review: I had this on order when it was originally going to be published by Manning as "The Ultimate Datawindow". They (Manning) tried to make it into a pocket reference by having Rick cut it down. Thank you for changing publishers! Until yesterday, I still had the the pre-release version of this book as Word docs because I feared what would happen to the end product. Now having gone through the whole book (finally got time), I tossed the old version. The final product was much better than the first cut and it definately lives up to it's name. I have put into practice alot of the ideas and methods defined therein. This book was well worth the price.....
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Summary: Definitive of What?
Review: I have to thank those that wrote an honest review of the material covered in this book and must agree that many of these reviews were written by folks close to the author. After reading the mixed reviews I elected not to invest in this title and instead to borrow a copy from a fellow programer while on a contract. Though I did find a few things in the material I did not know, the vast majority of this book is basic information that anyone who has spent any time programming in PowerBuilder would already know. Since the author did have such a web presence (I am not surprised to see he has all but disappeared) and reputation I really had expected more and would have been very disgruntled had I spent money on this product. Instead spend your money on PowerBuilder Unleashed by Simon Henry and if you really can't stand to use the online documentation that shows all of the information contained in this book and want some bathroom reading material, pick up a used copy of this. At least then when you pick out the bits and pieces you might actually use you can sell it used yourself and will not feel cheated.
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Summary: &1.50 was too much to pay for this
Review: I saw this author present at tech wave on this same subject and he was incompetent and totally disorganized. I had hoped he was just having an off day but having picked up this book at a second hand book store I now know that he really is! This book is as poorly put together and thought out as his class was. The material is disorganized and when you find what you are looking for it is incomplete. I think these other reviewers are either friends of the author or work for the publisher because the $1.50 I paid for this book was too much! I sure hope Richard programs better than he writes!
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Summary: Use the PB online Help instead!
Review: I was hoping this book would shed some light on more advance features of the datawindow. Instead, it is basically a re-hash of the online help file. Nothing new here. Brooks could have went into more more depth regarding the more non-intuitive datawindow presentation styles such as cross-tabs and graphs...but he didn't. Everytime I've reached for the book as a referrence, I've had to look elsewhere.
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Summary: PowerBuilder Success - Indeed!
Review: I was one of the reviewers of the original manuscript and I can say this - the book got even better in it's final form. Essentially if you think you ARE a Powerbuilder developer and you are NOT using at least 50% of the knowledge contained in this book, stop kidding yourself - you ARE NOT. Drop everything you are doing and order this book. Datawindow IS the HEART of Powerbuilder and you've got to know it by heart...
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