Anyone has a good PowerBuilder Enterprise 10.x book to recommend?

Question

I have been trying to find a good reference book with good hands on example projects to learn from but I can't seem to find any PB10 books out there- On amazon, it looks like it goes up to 9x whilst the newest sybase version is 11 with .NET

I'm trying to pick up Powerbuilder as fast as possible and would like to find a good book to learn and reference from. Please answer with what you think is a good book/resource and if you see someone recommending a good book please help vote for it!

I'm particularly working in the version 10 environment and would not be picking up 11 with .NET so please recommend books for 10.x!

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I'm afraid you'll find the dead tree market getting pretty thin, and you won't be able to find a book for every version of everything anymore. (It doesn't pay very well for the effort.) Given the fact that good programming techniques in PowerBuilder 6 still apply in PowerBuilder 11, I'm pretty sure that you'll find the PowerBuilder 9 books, plus a list of differences between versions like the What's New in the help file or a list like my site will get you the information you need. Sybase also keeps webcasts around when they're flogging a new release, but I'm not sure if they keep them as far back as PB10.

I'd recommend the PB9 book by Armstrong. Also, don't be shy about checking out the books/manuals that come with the product, that are also available online; they're pretty decent.

Good luck,

Terry

Answer 2

Writing for Powerbuilder has died off in recent years.

There are few changes between 9 & 10 but it's primarily additional features, and unless you are using any of those, you won't miss out by buying a Powerbuilder 9 book. There is a list of the differences between 9 and 10 here: New in Powerbuilder 10

PowerBuilder 9: Advanced Client/Server Development is probably a good bet for you. I've not read it, but Bruce Armstrong is a very knowledgeable guy.

I used to like the Unleashed series, but I believe they stopped at Powerbuilder 7.0 Unleashed. Might still be worth getting, the fundamentals are the same even between 7 and 10.

Answer 3

I'd have to second what Colin and Terry said (including my book...). The other thing I wanted to mention though was that Yakov Werde (a former Sybase instructor) has put together some online training videos. The labs in them are for 11.5, but the material covers just about any version.

Answer 4

I might just be stating the obvious, but I've been using the "Getting Started" tutorial on the Sybase website:

http://sybooks.sybase.com/nav/detail.do?docset=430

PDF: http://download.sybase.com/pdfdocs/pbg1000e/pbgs.pdf