Do we need another book about BIRT?

[Paul Bappoo]

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. Pa...@BIRTReporting.com