Well, yes as it turns out, I believe we do! When I was asked by Packt Publishing to review their new book ?BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting? by John Ward, I initially thought that it was a bit cheeky of them to ask me to review a title that was in competition with my own ?BIRT for Beginners?, however I thought I would go along with it and see where it led and I am very pleased I did.
There is most definitely a place in the market for this book, right between ?BIRT for Beginners? and the two magnificent titles ?BIRT a Field Guide to Reporting? and ?Integrating and Extending BIRT?. Whilst my own work is a good introduction to BIRT aimed at complete beginners and spreads it?s focus to the commercially available aspects as well as the open source and the other two take the subject of BIRT to expert level, this book is the ideal companion and reference guide for those of you who have taken your first steps but now want to go a bit further.
BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting is written in a clear, professional style, which keeps to the point and stays engaging. I found that I was able to read it easily and take in what was being said with little effort.
The book features a good introduction to the subject of BI and how BIRT fits into the picture, moving on to a relatively deep description of the features of the open source product. It even goes as far as to describe the process of building BIRT from the source code!
There are many walk through tutorials with big clear screen shots and the subject of accessing data in the various forms supported by BIRT are covered in good detail. There is even an excellent section on web services as a data source, which I was delighted to see since this is a subject for which good guides are hard to come by online.
Another thing I was pleased to see here was a ?detailed but not too difficult? discussion on scripting and event handling with some really great examples and walk throughs, even going as far as event handling within charts.
So if you have already evaluated BIRT and started using it for real life projects, but you don?t want to go as far as modifying the source code or really getting to grips with the API, then this book is the ideal guide for you. Intelligent, easy to read, packed full of very sensible, workable and simple to follow examples and updated to the latest version of BIRT. I highly recommend BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting.
More information about:
BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting:
http://tinyurl.com/2delj98
BIRT for Beginners:
http://www.birtreporting.com/BIRT-for-Beginners.html
Other BIRT books:
http://www.birtreporting.com/Books-on-BIRT-Reports.html
The BIRT User Group UK:
http://www.meetup.com/BIRT-User-Group-UK/
BIRTReporting.com:
http://www.BIRTReporting.com
Paul Bappoo is the author of BIRT for Beginners (which is available in paperback from BIRTReporting.com, Amazon and Barnes and Noble amongst others) and has been an international software consultant and involved with computers for over 30 years. Paul has an interest in BIRT reporting, enterprise application integration, automated software testing, computer based training and enterprise system implementation. Paul runs the BIRT User Group UK and is a member of the BIRT-Exchange Advisory Council. He would be delighted to hear from you with your tips, tricks and stories about your usage of BIRT. If you have a question, a need for training or consulting or great tip to share with the community then drop him a line. Paul@BIRTReporting.com
