SQL/400 Developer's Guide Volume 2

SQL the standard for data access is now presented in a AS400/iSeries user format. The differences that exist for the DB2/400 user are minor but significant enough to warrant 500 pages plus. Conte and Cravitz flood the text with real working examples that hit homeruns with the IBM midrange user. Yet, minus the sprinkling of RPG/ILE & Cobol code any DB2 user would find the text extremely helpful. Keep this book at the ready since it's a "quick grab" when questions come up regarding triggers, UDF's or Database Modeling and design.The Book is a great starting point for the AS400/iSeries guru looking to open their database to the outside world. With a solid SQL footing the JDBC mountain is a much easier climb.Conte & Cravitz keep up the great work!

As a VB developer, I have experience with Informix, SQL Server and Oracle. But implementing SQL on the AS400 was a challenge. This book was my salvation. It provided the necessary information to help my team develop secure ODBC access to the AS400 using SQL Stored Procedures. We were able to create tables that provide different record format and file names, and short field names for RPG non-SQL access, as well as long (meaningful) names for Visual Basic / SQL access. We learned how to evaluate SQL naming vs. System naming. And we learned how to provide secure ODBC connections by revoking some of the "public" authorities and using SQL stored procedures with program adopted authority.Phase II of the project will be WEB based. It's nice to know our DB2 implementation and SQL stored procedures will work whether we use Java, VB .NET or a mixed development environment.I took my copy of the "SQL 400/Developer's Guide" to the office. People kept "borrowing" it, so I had the company buy a copy. It quickly became the most popular book in the company library. It was in such demand that several developers bought their own copies. I hope this book is updated annually to incorporate new DB2/400 features. I would gladly purchase future revised editions covering topics like "Implementing Datalinks", "How to find the AS400 job log for ODBC requests", "Using SQL Statements to Define Database Triggers", "Retrieving Disconnected Recordsets" with JAVA and VB examples, "Creating Pivot Tables", "Populating Grids", "Multiple System Joins" (if IBM ever offers this common SQL feature), and more SQL examples.

If I were teaching (or taking) a class on SQL/400, or just wanting to learn how to develop AS/400 database applications, this is _the_ book that I would want to use. The information needed to develop AS/400 SQL applications is available from other sources, but contained in hundreds of technical manuals, magazine articles, news group postings, and code examples (just to name a few sources). The authors have used their considerable knowledge and experiences to shorten the learning process for the reader by pulling together that information into a single place. I am especially impressed with the organization of material into manageable topics, the easy to read writing style, and numerous tips and techniques presented. I found reading this book more like reading a good novel and wanting to see what happens in the next chapter rather than reading a textbook. I have to admit however I live with this stuff every day. Having been an AS/400 database administrator for the past 10 years I can appreciate the amount of knowledge, experience and effort required to write a book of this kind. The only downside to this book that I found is that I would have liked to see more information about developing applications using JDBC, interfacing with Windows applications using ADO and ODBC, and serving AS/400 information via Web pages. I find an increasing part of my workload to be answering questions about these topics. A good majority of those questions however don't deal with language specific access mechanisms but rather from a lack of understanding about AS/400 specific features and database fundamentals, topics which are well covered in this book. After reading this book I do have one additional problem also. Now I need to buy a stack of these books to hand out to the numerous developers who cross my desk on a daily basis.

This book is a good reference for AS/400 programmers who want to use SQL. I've found the answers to almost all my questions and lots of examples of good code. It doesn't cover JDBC programming much (just an overview), which I'd like to see. But the SQL/400 technical information goes from basics to advanced. Most of the embedded SQL examples are in RPG IV and use the latest release, which provides some neat coding techniques. The section on "soft coding" triggers is great!Overall, this is a very well done book that I highly recommend.

I'm an AS/400 programmer with over ten years experience with RPG, DDS, and DB2/400. I've been working with SQL/400 for a little over a year. I wish I'd had this book when I started learning SQL! It has very thorough introductions to all the essential DDL and DML statements. Although I'm somewhat beyond the "basics" level now, I've also found lots of help with more advanced issues. The explanation of transaction isolation levels and record locking is better than I've found anywhere. Also, the complex rules for "system" vs. "SQL" naming are finally comprehensible. The authors seem to know SQL/400 very well, judging from the numerous "nitty-gritty" technical fine points that are provided in footnotes. This is really the kind of book that an AS/400 developer needs to become a good SQL programmer, too.