Good coverage of some advanced topics but better books available now
This was a highly anticipated book when it came out because it covered some very hot topics; namely XML and Java. The book probably didn't quite live up to expectations but still provided a load of useful information about those topics.
Today you're probably better off with purchasing Lotus Notes and Domino 6 Programming Bible. Brian Benz and Rocky Oliver have done a great job with that book.
Useful
I have read this book and found it useful. As a beginner on Domino Web Development this book has realy helped me in developing adequate skills in XML, Javascript and Java.
About as bad as they come
Don't waste your time or money with this book. I thought for sure with a title like this that it would skip all the what is Notes junk (like how to create views and forms, etc.) that all Notes books seem obligated to include. It is just a bunch of a filler in an otherwise useless book. I was looking forward to seeing some good JavaScript examples as it is used in common Notes situations. Well, no such luck. I struggled to find anything on something as basic and useful as the onChange event. This book is also not organized very well and is very confusing to learn follow. I am not sure the author has a good grasp of what he is writing. VERY DISAPPOINTING!!!!
reference book written with little care and effort
At page 682 of 836 Tamura introduces Chapter 22 with the phrase "What is XML?". At page 808 Chapter 27 begins with "What is a servlet?". Introducing fundamental terms of web technology near the end of the book should make it obvious that something with the concept of this book went fundamentally wrong. From a modern book on Domino Web programming I'd expect some information about how to implement a multitier architecture, scalability,maintainability , perfomance and security etc... You won't find anything useful about these things in the whole book. So what does Tamura consider important then? The book is a collection of reference sections, e.g. Notes Design elements (Chapter 2 to 6) found in numerous other books including the Designer online help in better quality. It is especially annoying, though, that he also explaines design elements that can be used in the notes client only but not in a webclient (e.g. layout regions). So why mention it at all here? It looks to me as if large amounts of this book have been inserted via copy and paste from other resources and other contexts. The html/Javascript reference sections do not contain any Domino specific information and can be found in other books in much better quality as well. The examples given (checking for blank fields etc)are extremely trivial and of no practical use. On the other hand Tamura dosnt tell the reader how to implement a nice looking navigation with DHTML views but only shows the ugly domino standard views and the performance critical view applet. XML: Tamura doesn't even mention the SAX or other modern APIs like JDOM. He just keeps talking about the rather old fasihioned DOM API. This is the worst book on domino development I've read so far and what makes it especially annoying from my point of view is the little care and effort with which it has been written. I think it's getting time to stand up against the black sheep in the business and name them explicitely. Hopefully this will enable other authors of better quality bring their books to the market.
Good book for reviewing What Notes/Domino can do
This is the book that let me keep reading all the times. As a As400 RPG programmer and Notes Developer, I like to know what Domino/Notes can do and looking for the way of directions and the key elements to bring back-end database to the Internet thru Domino. I like this book because it gives me the directions and shows me the ways to apply Java,JavaScript and Servlet to the Domino Server either from inside Domino Agents or outside Domino.Especially, the topics for Notes Java classes really shows me the way to java coding in Notes Agents. Though it is not complete to cover all these area, it is definitely a excelent book to keep.The writing is good and author always get to the point right away for each topic. Maybe it is a waste of money for people who knows all these topics already but it is certainly a key door to the people like me who has been wondering how to get to these area for years. After reading all of it, I definitely know where to go and how to do to be a cutting edge programmer.
