Sams Teach Yourself Dreamweaver Ultradev 4 in 21 Days

This book got my attention after leafing through a few pages and seeing the chapter on database normalization. I feel like I finally understand how to do something beyond the little "show stuff in a table" apps I was writing before. It's a good solid book on using UltraDev, but covers some ground that others may not be so interested in.

What can I say, I liked this book!The book seems to be aimed at someone who is reasonably intelligent, has little to no web experience, and doesn't want to get their hands too dirty creating dynamic sites. I think part of the problem with the UltraDev product is that it really doesn't do that much without editing the code directly. This book could easily have broken down into an ASP programming guide, but it doesn't. The author seems to understand that NOT EVERYONE wants to use Microsoft products for their server deployment (even though ASP *is* used as the example).Personally, I'm thrilled to see something other than a book on Microsoft Access. I haven't tried MySQL in quite awhile, and, after installing it, I'm quite pleased with both the performance of the backend and the GUI on the front.For the drumbeat users, I'd say this isn't your book - when Macromedia integrated Dreamweaver into what *was* Drumbeat, they opened up web development to a whole new group of people - those who haven't ever seen or touched a development tool or language. This book is for those people. It does touch a bit on coding issues, but that's the only way anyone is ever going to do anything beyond simple lists in UltraDev.

I bought this book for myself to round out a holiday order, and I feel someone obliged to comment on the "Not for Beginners" review. I think you'll find that the other reviews say that this is "*not* for someone who doesn't know HTML". I do agree that if you've never seen HTML, you should probably order a DreamWeaver 4 book as a "starter" companion. However, if you've never seen HTML, I don't think UltraDev is necessarily a wise investment at this point.Nonetheless, in no way are you expected to use MySQL. I was pleased to see the MySQL information (for Windows or Unix) because it lets you get up and running on Windows without needing to have Microsoft Access installed. If you are using Access, you'll still need to know the basics of SQL in order to effectively use the software in anything but "basic" mode.Overall, I'm pleased with my purchase. I guess that if you're planning on doing serious dynamic development you should have an understanding of HTML and at least an inkling of how databases work before reading - but assuming you do, you should be happy with this book.

It's alittle bit pricier, but this book seems to be the best of the UltraDev "bunch". The pace is a bit slow to begin (it has to cover everything in the Dreamweaver portion of UltraDev) but it quickly picks up and demonstrates several very different applications that can be built with UltraDev. Its more than just "here's how to show your data on a webpage" - which seems to be the standare fare of other titles.

As an experienced Dreamweaver/HTML user with little knowledge of databases, I had planned to skim the early chapters to learn about new Dreamweaver features than dive into the "UltraDev" part, but when I began reading I found much more than the usual "how to use this program" list of features. There's a chapter on designing a website, an excellent one on database setup that includes detailed explanations of how to structure data, and a lot of practical advice for those of us who are new to dynamic web content. This author knows his stuff. Would I recommend it to someone who'd never even seen HTML? No. Would I recommend it to everyone else? -- Absolutely.