The Book: Harnessing SQR - Editor's Comments

Darrin Miller has taken his experience in the field as a Brio top SQR guru and put it all down in a book. I was amazed as I edited this book that Darrin was able to quickly add another twenty pages of material when I suggested a topic. We're even talking about the second edition already.

This book, which could easily be subtitled The Hitchhiker's Guide to SQR, will take you through methodologies that will make your SQR application into a reporting suite. Then you will transform your non-SQR applications that take hours to run and do them in seconds. You will be able to rewrite or debug SQR programs that are delivered with your ERP application and get valuable hints on how to fine-tune your database for optimum performance. Multi-lingual applications can be created, and there are many chapters devoted to the Brio Portal and other Brio One applications. What is amazing about this book, is that the author takes you from student to expert in a short time. He explains the underlying logic behind complex applications. Then on the same page he applies the idea into a usable, portable application that you can program right away on your database. It is Darrin Miller's unique combination of programming skills and extensive field experience that allows him to do this kind of writing.

For years, SQR has been a powerful database language that is a preferred tool for many databases. According to Brio's press release of October 1, 2002, "SQR Server is unique in providing native drivers for the widest range of enterprise data sources, including Oracle, Informix, Sybase, DB2, SQLBase, SQL Server, RDB, Red Brick Warehouse, and OpenIngres. SQR Server also runs on the widest range of enterprise operating systems including AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, DG-UX, OS/400, MVS, OpenVMS, Windows 95/98, Windows NT and many others. SQR reporting technology also ships as a part of many well-known commercial application software products such as PeopleSoft's enterprise application software." In this book you will learn how to connect all those databases seamlessly, and you will see the power that inspired ERP vendors to use SQR for functionality that they simply cannot match with any other tools. Also it is no accident that over the years many companies, too numerous to mention, have based themselves on SQR utilities, SQR GUI code-building tools, and SQR consulting services.

SQR is winning major awards every year in an enterprise reporting industry that is expected to triple its revenue in the next three years from 5 to 15 billion dollars. In such an environment, the need for a book like this one is tremendous. Craig Brennan, Brio's CEO, says, "With over 35,000 developers, the SQR community is one of the largest that Brio supports. This year, (2002).....we are creating a number of highly technical sessions (at our annual conference) for the growing number of SQR developers." It is no wonder that this book, Unleashing SQR, is being released publicly for the first time at the November 2002 Brio national conference.

In writing this book, Darrin Miller has opened up the toolkit that has made SQR programmers into an elite club, and Darrin's own project teams the creme de la creme. Once this knowledge is unleashed, SQR will grow even more in popularity, as more programmers will seek to learn the language and more organizations will choose to use it as a preferred tool. As a career foundation, Unleashing SQR makes a great textbook to build into a college or computer-programming training course as well. For anyone reading this book, I wish you an enjoyable journey. I assure you that you will soon feel like you have found a treasure chest full of glittering gems.

- Steven Stein