Walter,

I know all about Joe Bob and the history. I've been on the UT since 1998. It was a mistake, John has already acknowledged it, and he paid the price.

Is John sometimes brutally blunt? Absolutely. He's given me some hard advice that was tough to swallow, but in the end he was right. He's helped me shake some of my prejudices about certain approaches to things. He constantly makes you think.

He's also the kind of person who will go the extra mile, even for a 'stranger'. Someone today told me that he once called John out of the blue, because he was having trouble coding something intricate. John had never met the guy before, but stayed on the phone with him for over an hour and helped him through it. If I were building a team, ANY team, he'd be the first guy I'd pick.

What I find hard to swallow is the inconsistency - that others on here break rules (like intentionally spelling the 'f' word incorrectly to fly below the radar), yet the only 'rule-breaker' worth mentioning is John.

That no one seems to care about a blatant falsehood (John "accosting" Bill Gates)...or that someone turned away a potential technical offering to the community, just because of who John is.

That it's OK for someone to say that John has gone from technical leader to someone who just wants to argue, and yet it's horrible when John states what some of the reactions to Craig's book have been.

And on that topic, I want to throw out my opinion on that subject (Craig's book). I've used Crystal heavily since 1996 and have purchased/downloaded everything I can get my hands on regarding Crystal, because quality information on CR has always been hard to find.

I've read Craig's book from cover to cover last year, and I scanned through the PDF again this evening to refresh my memory on it. My own two cents is that I never considered it a 'bad' book, as there is some value and merit to it. It covers the designer very well, and is a good reference for "power users" and Fox developers who are getting their feet wet with Crystal.

But for a developer (especially a non-Fox developer) who is integrating Crystal into an app and has some sophisticated requirements, I just don't think it's a very 'strong' book. Developers generally don't need a large amount of screen shots and technical reference charts (the most common observation/criticism of the book).

I know Craig fields a large # of questions each month on Crystal and has certainly earned the title of 'Crystal Guru', so it's always been puzzling to me why this book wasn't stronger. While it's harder in the information age to publish something that isn't covered elsewhere, there was (in my view) a pretty high % of content in the book that was available elsewhere.

"Crystal Reports .NET Programming" by Brian Bischof is clearly the best title, hands-down, for developers who use Crystal. I rank it right up there with Ken Henderson's SQL Guru's Guide, the Codebook, and Tamar's book on Office Automation as my 'Desert Island classics'.

My (long) two cents...

Kevin