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Mastering Dreamweaver MX Databases Review by Randy Farnsworth
Covers a lot but not in depth
When I first flipped through the contents of this book, my first impression was, "Cool, it covers everything!" However, my second impression, after looking though it, was that it covers it all so shallowly, that it's not worth the time to read it. But then, my THIRD impression was that that's probably what the authors had in mind - give a broad overview of the topic(s), then let you purchase other books or training to go in depth on the areas you need.
And it does just that - gives a great background into all (or at least most) of the technologies needed to get going in this field, using Dreamweaver as the tool. But if you're looking for a detailed step-by-step tutorial into database-driven webpage development, then this probably isn't the book for you. Try Dreamweaver MX Dynamic Applications, by Jeffrey Bardzell if that's what you want.
This book is broken down into four sections:
1) Data-driven Web Pages -- an intro to the topic, to Dreamweaver MX, HTML forms, and a great section on good coding practices. Coming from a design background, I especially liked that coding section.
2) The Databases -- a description and comparison of the major databases in use, including Oracle, MySQL and those ones by Microsoft that I don't know why anyone would use.
3) The Languages -- an intro on connections and scripting and *very* brief tutorials on the major scripting languages in use, including ColdFusion, JSP, PHP and some dribble about Microsoft. As for this section, you will definately need to get additional training/books/tutorials about your language of choice. This is a 700+ page book, with small fonts, but it doesn't cover these languages very well, nor should it. Those should be left to their own books.
4) Using and Manipulating the Data -- this is where the book finally starts giving some step-by-step info on accessing data, building forms, master-detail page sets, search pages, etc. Again, these sections are brief, but usable. However, having just gone through Bardzell's book (mentioned above), I chose to skip these. Plus, the one section I did look at, the master-detail page set section, had several typos and errors in it. Code errors are completely unacceptable in a tech book, in my opinion. Don't you have editors for that?
Anyway, if you want a good overview of the subject matter, this book really covers an awful lot of area. But it does so at the expense of real depth. However, I think that was the whole intent of the book. This is a real good book for someone just starting in the field, that's not sure what everything is. After going through this book, you could then branch off, in depth, into the area of your choice. (And that area should probably be JSP or PHP/MySQL, since we all know Microsoft is going out of business soon, and open source is king!)