I just completed a 21 day JDE developer course. Wow. I recommend the Developer Guide and suggest also getting the JDE Edwards training. The One World tool is very powerful and feature rich. I believe the Developer Guide is a very good book for beginner JDE programmers. One of the best features about the book is the note inserts. I really liked the Note inserts. The authors share their experience through helpful tips and warnings in each note. For example, in the Form Design Aid the authors state "In a Find/Browse form grid, you need to turn on the Multiple Select option in the Forms Option int the form's grid properties".
The Form Design Aid chapter includes Step by Step instructions for Search and Select Forms, Find/Browse, Fix/Inspect, Header/Detail, Headerless/Detail, Parent/Child, and Message Form. You will learn how to add a single business view to the form and select fields for placement on the form. Each Form control is described: Check Box, Radio, textbox, UDC Edit Control, Media Object, Bitmap, Tree Control, and Tab Page. Additionally, you will learn how to modify grid properties. This is a big help because the Grid has properties and ER. A new concept for me to learn was data structures and processing options. The authors did a great job explaining how to create a data structure, what the data structure was used for, how to connect a processing option to a data structure, and using versioning to access the forms processing option. Also, you learn how to add menu items to your form. Next, Event Rule (ER) code is introduced to tie code to your Event Rule actions for the menu item. ER includes: Form interconnects, Table I/O, System Functions, Business Functions, Control properties, and if/else logic.
I was able to successfully create each form type from the chapter. In future chapters ER and NER coding is explained. I recommend browsing the complete book to which areas which connect together, such as, controls, business functions, NER, and ER.
The Book does a fair job of explaining Object Management WorkBench and CNC. They really need to separate the content into two books: one for CNC and the other for development. If I have a problem relating to CNC, I'm not going to try to fix it; let the CNC person fix it. The authors could have used those pages for more content on Development.
The authors explained JDE naming conventions for forms, reports, business views, data structures, tables, and applications. Step by Step instructions are provided to create each object type.
The Report Design Aid chapter was helpful as it explained the different types of reports. I personally, found the Report Design Aid to be a very well designed tool. The architecture and user interface is very easy to use. They say any report can be created using RDA. The Report training was very impressive, you think it, you build it.
The authors not only walk you through the report wizards but they explain each part of the form: Report header, Page Header, group, Columnar, Tabular, Page Footer, and Report Footer. Expect to create various reports and learn by various examples throughout the RDA chapter.
Even if your a Visual Basic Programming, you will find ER programming very different. The Authors do an outstanding job explaining the Event Rule Language. You really need this chapter: it explains ER for the form or report, ER for a Control, and ER for a grid. Step by Step instructions teach you how to put a Business Function in your Code, how to use table I/O to select, delete, or update a data record, how to call another form from your existing form, and how to comment and debug your code.
This book does a very good job introducing Development environment tools. I found the debugging section especially helpful. If your working with table conversions, this chapter provides step by step instructions on using the table conversion tool.
The Generic Application Development chapter puts everything together. You work on a small project creating forms, tables, views, functions, and reports. This is a fun chapter and will challenge your understanding of the previous chapters. The book does not come with a CD.
In short, I think the authors did a very good job introducing the JDE development tool. The style of the book was very similar to my training. I gave four stars because my training curriculm was about two feet think. Granted the book does have a 1000 pages, but I think the training curriculum was more comprehensive. However my training cost was over a 100 times more expensive.
