Good Book

[BobWeaver]

I just picked up a copy of 'Advanced FileMaker Pro 5.5 Techniques for Developers' by Chris Moyer and Bob Bowers. Just started reading it but, wow, finally a book that actually addresses serious FileMaker issues.

[kennedy]

Agreed... I have been reading it this week, too. Some may be turned off by some of the more theoretical aspect of relational database concepts... but you can skip past it if you just want the practical stuff.

I think they were a bit sloppy on the CD-ROM; and some of the statements in the book are a bit out of sync. But I have seen a *lot* worse.

I am using their security system of Chapter 7... would have taken me weeks to figure out all that... took a day with their book. But the code on disk actually has some slop in it (like an Allow User Abort [on] instead of [off]). I'll be posting an improved version of their code to the Samples File... but if you want to understand it or adapt it to your solution, you'll definitely want the book. There's a lot that needs explaining.

Their audit trail stuff is pretty good (I like mine better... spoken like a true programmer... ;^), but they take it all the way to rollback capabilities... most treatments stop at simple lookups.

I just bought the book for the security stuff... but after reading chapters 1-7, I'll definitely be reading the rest of the book soon.

FWIW.

[macguys]

Actually the theoretical stuff was some of the most interesting material for me. I did note a problem with the audit trail stuff as presented. It doesn't work quite right if you follow the procedures in the book, but works fine on the sample files from the CD. I corresponded with the author and found a fix. The problem is that the "old value" is not updated in the audit log. To fix the problem, duplicate the Audit_Existing Lookup field, and change the references in Audit_Current Text to the new field.

Thanks to the author for setting me straight.