INFORMIX: Power Reference

Rating:
Summary: Good general information
Review: A good place to start is with "Informix Basics" by Glenn Miller. Then you are ready to graduate to "Informix Power Reference" by Art Taylor. I do have to weed out what I can use as I am using SE not online. The CD is almost exclusive online. There is a pretty comprehensive 4GL section. The 4GL was interesting however I am not using that either. Two pages made this book worth the price. I was desperate to find out how to copy data to a flat file and back. The commands are "load" and "unload." With a few adjustments for the HP/UX SE ANSI file names the example worked right out of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Good general information
Review: A good place to start is with "Informix Basics" by Glenn Miller. Then you are ready to graduate to "Informix Power Reference" by Art Taylor. I do have to weed out what I can use as I am using SE not online. The CD is almost exclusive online. There is a pretty comprehensive 4GL section. The 4GL was interesting however I am not using that either. Two pages made this book worth the price. I was desperate to find out how to copy data to a flat file and back. The commands are "load" and "unload." With a few adjustments for the HP/UX SE ANSI file names the example worked right out of the book.

Rating:
Summary: By an MIS person dealing with IDS 7.3 for the first time
Review: The book covers a lot of useful points. I was interested only in installing and configuring IDS 7.3 on both UNIX and Windows, and writing DML to create databases, tables, etc. The book covers generics pretty well, but not the differences between UNIX and Windows versions. I was able to install and configure IDS (making informed choices) after reading the book. Details on DML syntax was scattered throughout the book, without adequate index or cross-references entries to take you to the next syntax option you could specify. Some syntax options were missing. This book would benefit from better organization or stronger editing in this area. The book gave useful hints and procedures to follow after a few problems were encountered after users started to use IDS.

Rating:
Summary: A GOOD WAY TO BE AN INFORMIX CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL
Review: This book is execellent. It really helped me to get an Informix Certification.