Re: Bought Des/Dev/2K: What docs??

John L Dunn wrote:
>
> Greetings:
>
> We just bought Designer and Developer 2000 for NT, hasn't even shown up
> yet. My understanding is that no hardcopy documentation ships with the
> product, but it's all there to be printed as needed.
>
> 1. Is this understanding correct?
>
> 2. If this is correct, what manuals should I print out for learning and
> getting a feel for the products? I've seen the list of docs, and it is
> quite long.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> John Dunn

The help screens can be pretty good, but you have to run around all the hyoer-text links to get anything decent. I recommend buying a book.

I found 3 at my local bookstore. The one by Oracle Press is a bit overwhelming and half of it is about system design technique, and not all that much about the 'how to' of Des2K. The next one that was pretty good was "The Oracle Designer/2000 Handbook" - Addison-Wesley. This too had many pages on theory. My favorite (which I bought) was "Rapid Application Development with Oracle Designer/2000", also from Addison-Wesley. This book is more like a "Designer/2000 for Dummies", although no computer dummy should ever attempt to use this product. They will likely move to Amish country in PA if they did. It has lots of pictures, larger font, practical step-by-step instructions and a complete Tutorial application. It doesn't dive into all the details, but if you want to get started and familiar quickly, this is the book. Buy one of the others later.

Getting a handle on the user interface, which is typical Oracle (lousy) takes awhile, especially since the product was developed in Britain. Sometimes you CANCEL when you are at a normal completion of a process, one window uses the word DISMISS (Brits!?!?), a window which indicates a process is done doesn't come to the top of the window stack, and other niceties. But it goes pretty good once you get over the slop. The book helps to show you what buttons to click, check boxes to check, and which ones you NEED to pay attention to. Try it.

John Caputo caputo1_at_llnl.gov Received on Tue Jan 21 1997 - 00:00:00 CET