Which book?

[Spiral]

[color:"blue"]Which book should I purchase?

"Advanced FileMaker Pro Techniques For Developers" by Chris Moyer and Bob bowers

OR

"The Book of FileMaker 6" by Chris Kubica.

I'm an Access developer who is interested in learning FMP6.

I'm a quick learner & I want to dig [color:"red"]DEEP [color:"blue"](e.g. Scripting, ODBC, etc...) into FMP.

Thank you in advance.

-Spiral

[Kurt Knippel]

Hmm, as an Access developer you will likely find the Moyer/Bowers book more helpful, as it is pretty advanced and mostly speaks to design theory. However the Kubica book is more specific to Filemaker and really throughly covers both basic and advanced topics, but does not get into as much theory or advanced concepts.

Personally I own both.

[Fenton]

"Special Edition Using Filemaker Pro 5," by Rich Coulombre and Jonathan Price, is also a very good book. Both it and Chris Moyers' book are intermediate to advanced, with more specific examples than basics. The former is a little better read though, IMHO; though Chris's has some good routines.

I found the database relational theory in the Moyers' book to somewhat tedious, spending much of its time arguing that FileMaker conforms to Normalization rules. Strangely enough, another book which is dedicated to the subject, but not application-specific, "Database Design for Mere Mortals," by Michael Hernandez, who is an Access developer, was easier to digest.

Some say his book is a bit simplistic and repetitive, but for us "normal" folks (pun), without computer science degrees, it's a great introductory book. It also has lots of tidbits on development, from interviewing clients, to Entity relationship diagrams (simple ones), to checklists for field attributes, etc., just like the big boys use -/

I have not read Chris Kubica's book, so cannot comment. It probably has more of the basics than any of the others. You really need to read several, as they're all a bit different.

[BobWeaver]

The Moyer and Bowers book is excellent, but is incomplete, while the Coulombre and Price book, while slightly less technically advanced, covers a broader ranges of topics in more depth. If you are new to Filemaker, then I don't think the Moyer and Bowers book would be sufficient on its own. I haven't read the Kubica book yet either, so I can't comment on it.

I just say this because an Access developer starting into Filemaker is likely to get extremely frustrated trying to do simple things that aren't obvious to someone new. The C&P book covers these things, while the M&B book assumes you already know a lot of Filemaker's quirks.

[kenneth2k1]

Technical books - ** YYYYAAAAWWWWNNNN **

While it is good to have these books for reference, I find that classroom instruction and CD-ROM tutorials are the best when starting out. Maybe it's my feeble mind - I have the "Generation X attention span."

Ken

[BobWeaver]

Well, none of these books are what I would call exciting reading, but when you need to look something up, the info is in there.

[Anatoli]

IMHO best resources for me:

1. FM Help

2. This forum

3. Another forum

[booboo]

I'd agree with BobWeaver, the Advanced FMP Techniques For Developers is a very good book, and one that goes beyond every other FMP book I've ever read. I found the general theory interesting, and found it helpful to look at FileMaker from the perspective of general database theory.

I also note that its excellent secure log-in files have been adapted and posted by users on this forum. Not sure whether that would please its authors . . .

also, as has already been mentioned, the Rich Coulombre and Jonathan Price "Special Edition Using Filemaker Pro 5" is the only other FMP book that is worth its salt, imho. This book is geared more to the idiosyncrasies of FileMaker, and perhaps doesn't do attempt to do everything in accordance with true relational design, but is geared to finding workarounds for some of the more esoteric things you will want to do. It is also very entertainingly written and worth every penny.

I can't comment on The Book of FileMaker 6" by Chris Kubica, because I haven't seen a copy yet, but on the whole I've been very disappointed with most FM books, including the FM Bible and the various Teach Yourself . . . guides for being little more than FM's own manual rewritten in a slightly different order.

[BobWeaver]

BTW Spiral, you mentioned getting into ODBC. The Coulombre & Price book does cover a bit on ODBC, while the Moyer and Bowers book doesn't get into it at all. That's what I meant about M&B being incomplete.

[kenneth2k1]

I agree with Anatoli that these forums provide the most information and experience.

People like Anatoli, Bob, Vaughan, Steve and many others have specifically helped me with problems more than any book or class.

[kenneth2k1]

[[ Warm up note and clear my throat ]]

All together now (in the key of G)

Happy 1000 post to me

Happy 1000 post to me

Happy 1000 post to meeee,

Happy 1000 post to me

[-Queue-]

Congrats, Ken. I am catching up to you, though.

[kenneth2k1]

I just did that cuz im bored.

I would expect you to pass me real soon. You have more kanowledge.

[Anatoli]

Best thing on this (and other forum) is the fact, that I am constantly refreshing my brain cells dedicated to FM with stream of ideas and facts. That will probably not happen with many books out there. Also skipping unimportant stuff is faster here.

Congratulations Ken

[Ugo DI LUCA]

These Forums are an "day-to-day" enrichment.

The books often give the author's way to solve one given problem with one scenario. The Forums offers multiple ways to solve multiple given problems with multiple scenarios.

It's also a mean to discover the variety of FM's use, and the way others are doing the same things.

Plus, it's a live thing, where you've got instant feedback for either the poster and the answerer.

Conclusion, 100% agreed these Forums are way more efficient, than any given book, assuming the posters also run into the FM help and some tests to understand the solutions provided, rather than using them "out of the box".

And Ken, was a good week, wasn't it ? Congrats

[dbruggmann]

I agree totally with all the praise for fmforums. Thoug I would recommend to start with the books, because the way FMP works is in many aspects very different from MS Access. In my opinion you catch this better by reading a book from cover to end.

1) I would recommend to beginn with Coulombre's/Price's

[zincb]

I started with a book by Jeff Gagne and Don Crabb that had a lot of examples (check to see if they have a FMP6 edition), but the absolute best book I ever bought and actually used more than twice is called "Scriptology", by... well, I don't remember and I don't have the book here right now, but he is one of the gods of FMP. It was twice the price of a normal Barnes & Noble book, but WELL worth it.

[SteveB]

Its Scriptology by Matt Petrosky and John Osborne. It's a little dated, and no longer in print, but it might be available used. I found it very helpful and the disk is great. They do offer a more complete disk on the web site.

Steve