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Rating: 
Summary: Skecthy and Spotty dbexpress reference
Review: I bought this book soley for the purpose of learning dbexpress - which hooks delphi up with a relational database management system. Delphi dbexpress accocomplishes this by setting up a collection of some six objects, which must have various flags, options, fields and parameters set and which must be correctly linked. Mr. Cantu fails to mention any of these flags, etc., gives only the sketchiest examples of code, and provides us with suplementary 'code' which apparently fails to either compile or to give us the details on the states and linkages of the objects. One more week of flailing and hacking my way through the dbexpress morass, and I should be able to write a much better tutorial/reference than has Mr. Cantu -- for all the respect he has in the field. It is possible that writing one definitive book on delphi, which does so much in so many different arenas, is simply too formidable a task.
Rating: 
Summary: The only reliable Delphi Book That Ive Seen So far
Review: Im from the Philippines and I really like Delphi...I just keep on wondering why the hell doesnt delphi kick the living daylights out of Visual Basic!!!....I hate Visual Basic with the utmost intensity!!!.....
Well I kinda got out of leage there but heres what I think about this book....
1. This book is advisable only for persons who have been exposed to at least more or less the simple control structures in C or Basic or Pascal
2. This book isnt for newbies a background of Pascal is needed to get the job done.
3. The author's arrogance pisses me off.. A good example would be
Page 518 on the Data Aware Example...The author wrote "The program has some code to fill in the table with random values. This code is tedious and not too complex, SO I WONT DISCUSS IT HERE...(IT IS FORGIVABLE FOR PEOPLE WITH PROGRAMMING BACKGROUNDS LIKE ME BUT FOR NEWBIES.... WELL MY GOD WHERE DOES HE PLAN TO DISCUSS THESE...I SURE HOPE IT WONT BE IN THE MARSHALL ISLANDS!!!)
4. Thankfully his arrogance is redeemed by the availability of free e-books on his website www.marcocantu.com look for the books Essential Pascal and Essential Delphi
5. The book all in all is a good referrence....given the notion that you know C or Pascal
6. For Delphi programmers we dont have much of a choice but go for Marco Cantu because the availability of referrences on delphi is very scarce.
7. I gave it 4 stars because..I must not review this solely on my perspective but on the perspective of people who are just beginning to learn programming..THE BOOK SAYS FOR ALL LEVELS HELL YES FOR TWO LEVELS MAYBE INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED BUT NOT HONESTLY FOR BEGINNERS..
Rating: 
Summary: It's still the best Delphi book
Review: It's right that it's not for a complete new comer, it's somewhat based on its previous versions. Because there's not a lot of Delphi books(not like C#... so many of them) for Delphi developers, it's still a very good book you can get for Delphi, it gives readers basic introductions to the new features of Delphi7... very concise introductions, as well as some "old" features but author wanted to highlight.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for beginners!
Review: Stay away from this book if you're new to the Delphi programming language. All the introductory material that appeared in previous editions has been excised. The book dives right into advanced coding concepts and useful tips for the experienced Delphi programmer.I bought this book based on the assumption that it would provide a thorough grounding in the fundamental mechanics of Delphi development. I was sorely disappointed and instead have ordered Learn Delphi 4 in 21 Days which should be geared more toward beginning Delphi programmers. You can visit the author's website and download his Essentials of Object Pascal book in pdf format. I did, but found it confusing, incoherent and utterly useless.
Rating:
Summary: Best overall Delphi Book Available
Review: This is the best general purpose Delphi Book on the Market. Mr. Cantu again shows that he knows Delphi as he continues this series of books. Ignore what adiv says; every review he writes is negative. If you are serious about Delphi programming you need this book!
Rating:
Summary: A great book with the needed detail
Review: To cover all the reviews so far, they all have a bit of truth in them. The book is not for the absolute beginner, but then no one book can cover it all. The book is basically for anyone that has learnt to move past the "hello world" program and understands normal programming theory (variables, loops, records etc), and really wants to get involved in "real world" programming. This book teaches use of multiple forms in applications (how many single form applications, really exist in the real world, except for beginners books), differences in the use of Delphi Database Architectures, the use of the JET engine for access to Excel, etc., the use of Web Services and a little more in depth on Rave etc. as well as an introduction to .NET programming If you are an absolute beginner programmer(nothing wrong with that), then another book may be more suitable, but if you are already across several languages, then this book is probably what you need to move to the next step. Yes it is true, that the absolute basics have diminished with each book, but how many ways can you write the if...then loop, and I still have my Delphi 2 and 3 books for the basics (if I hit a mental block). Anyhow, I hope this makes it a lot clearer, like all his previous books, it is well written and another welcome addition to my library.
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