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Reviewed by Diane George
Price $32.95 -- street price $27.95
Access is the database component of Microsoft’s Office suite, designated as the "professional" or "premium" versions. It is also available as a standalone program. This book has been updated from the first edition for the release of Office 2000, but much of what is included applies to other versions of Access.
The book is organized into six sections. The first section discusses database design concepts such as the Entity-Relationship Model of a Database and Database Design Principles. The author provides concise, but thorough descriptions of the concepts and theoretical examples. There are multiple charts and diagrams to help illustrate the concepts being explained, as well as examples explained using Access terminology, examples of various windows and dialog boxes. Key concepts such as the types of relationships in a relational database, referential integrity, redundancy, and normalization are covered.
After the explanation of design principles that consist of breaking down the data into its basic elements, the second section covers putting those elements back together. Topics include query languages generally, relational algebra and relational calculus. Then the author introduces us to Access Structured Query Language (SQL). The discussion is quite detailed and it is here that you get your first real taste of the programming aspects of Access. While Access creates its own queries using SQL, you can modify them or write your own. Descriptions are included of some of the statements used to accomplish this with examples of queries.
The third section covers Database Architecture. He leads you into it with the query "Why Program?" and goes on to explain why SQL is not enough. There is a description of various components of VBA, as well as the first introduction of some VBA code. He describes the structures by VBA. This section is short but contains a lot of information about the underpinnings of the language.
Finally, we turn to the specifics of using Access. The fourth section covers use of the Visual Basic editor, with a detailed description of the various windows and their functions. A list of keyboard shortcuts is given for navigation through the editor. The meat of the section is the descriptions of how to write a procedure, how to deal with errors and to debug the code. He describes variables, data types and constants, with examples to explain each concept. There are plenty of tips as to good programming practices along the way. There are lists of built-in functions and statements followed by detailed descriptions of some that the author regards as important. Further along, he does the same for control statements such as "If ... Then" and "Select Case."
After all this practical information, he returns to a more theoretical discussion of programming Data Access Objects. The discussion is not complete, as the author admits, but it does provide with enough information to get the reader oriented. Code is provided to illustrate the various concepts. This is the nitty-gritty. It is possible to use Access and never know about this level of the program, but the hard-core programmer needs to know this. This is where you learn to manipulate the data without ever using the Access interface (if you would ever want to).
The final chapters are devoted to a discussion of ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), Microsoft’s programming model for a "universal data access interface" called OLE DB. OLE DB is a technology intended to be used to connect to any type of data, including Web and email based data, as well as the usual database data, spreadsheet data and text data. Examples are giving using the ADO model to accomplish various tasks and comparing several different methods to accomplish the same thing.
Unlike other books that appear to be sold by the pound or the number of pages, this book is concise and to the point. While most books include a CD with additional information, sample data, or even other books, there is no CD, just instructions on how to download the sample files or to create the database at your own computer. The database examples used are not extensive so it is relatively easy to create the necessary tables and to populate them with data if you have the time.
Included are a bibliography and an appropriately detailed index. The book is only 409 pages long as I was surprised to discover since there is so much packed into it. If you are a programmer and need a reference to assist you with using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), this book is for you. If you are interested in becoming a Microsoft Access programmer, this book is for you. If you are a casual user of Access, this book will not be of much help to you. It is not a "cookbook" type of book with lots of examples and showing how to create forms and reports. It is an excellent introduction to the theoretical underpinnings of database programs in general and Access in particular. It is an excellent reference to have by your side when you are attempting to write code and don’t understand what you are doing. I am not much of a programmer and tend to like the "cookbooks" because I always find something I can "borrow." This book helps me understand the principles behind what I am doing.
Copyright © April, 2000 by Diane George
Access Database Design & Programming may be purchased online from O'Reilly & Associates for $26.36 after the User Group discount of 20%.
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