Omnimark at Work: Getting Started

Rating:
Summary: Keep those pennies
Review: Having struggeled with Omnimarks own concise manuals this is the solution to any Omnimark programmer. It is a must! Looking forward to Volume II.

Rating:
Summary: Keep those pennies
Review: The information presented in this book is poorly organized, outdated, and incomplete. Sadly, it's the only book dedicated to OmniMark. The best way to learn OmniMark is to go to Canada and learn from OmniMark Technologies. This book covers OmniMark version 3. OmniMark version 5.1 is out now (July 1999).

Rating:
Summary: Updated material would be nice.
Review: This book does give a fairly good overview of the Omnimark programming(scripting) language, but the material is -way- out of date. Many of the examples given will not work correctly if at all with the newer versions of the Omnimark C/VM. Since the publish date of the book in 1997 there have been 2 major revisions to Omnimark (current version is now 5.2), and with these revisions many things have been added, deleted, or modified for one reason or the other. I do -NOT- recommend this book for those wanting to learn how to use Omnimark effectivly. I do however encourage the author to -UPDATE- this publication or discontinue it. Let us hope that the soon to be released "part 2" of this work is up-to-date and well structured.

Rating:
Summary: Updated material would be nice.
Review: This book does give a fairly good overview of the Omnimark programming(scripting) language, but the material is -way- out of date. Many of the examples given will not work correctly if at all with the newer versions of the Omnimark C/VM. Since the publish date of the book in 1997 there have been 2 major revisions to Omnimark (current version is now 5.2), and with these revisions many things have been added, deleted, or modified for one reason or the other. I do -NOT- recommend this book for those wanting to learn how to use Omnimark effectivly. I do however encourage the author to -UPDATE- this publication or discontinue it. Let us hope that the soon to be released "part 2" of this work is up-to-date and well structured.

Rating:
Summary: Great introduction and practical examples
Review: This is a must-have book for anyone interested in learning about OmniMark. The OmniMark language is so large that a single book can't possibly cover the whole language. Travis mentions this up front, and says this book is a collection of tips and techniques he has collected over the years. It worked for us; we were able to get up-and-running quickly with the help of the first chapter, "OmniMark for the Impatient". This provided a very fast overview of the language, and provided plenty of pointers to concepts covered later in the book. The rest of the book explored the basics of the language, allowing us to use OmniMark in a production environment.

This is not a reference manual. The documentation from OmniMark provides technical documentation, but no real-world examples. OmniMark At Work is full of examples, which fill the void left by the vendor's docs.

Another unique aspect is that each of the program samples in the book was compiled and run as the book was typeset (Using OmniMark, of course!). Travis explains in the Colophon that every example in the book is guarenteed to work, because it is verified by the OmniMark compiler. This shows the power of the OmniMark language in being able to mix data and programs to create a useful output. Each of the two-hundred or so programs, along with the input data and the output created, are available on the included CD. The CD also contains a version of OmniMark that can run all of the programs.

The Introduction mentions that this is the first of a multiple-volume set of books on OmniMark programming from the author. We are looking forward to more in the series!