I didn't realize this subform existed, till now. Amazing.

Anyway, I was visiting a book store today and looking at the database computer books as I plan to eventually migrate to LINUX, which means converting from ACCESS to a LINUX friendly database. At the bookstore they had a book on PHP/MySQL (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514013/). So when I saw the subform, I realized that their would be "hope". I previously made a post on this issue here (http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=154802).

Would this be a good starter book? Learning MySQL (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596008642/#top)

For now, my database would be limited to a local LAN. In looking at the books at the book store, PHP and MySQL were closely linked, obviously for allowing internet access. However, Python was not mentioned. Any thoughts on a Python/MySQL combination? Would it be considered as an alternative to VBA?

I can't recommend a book because I've never bought a book for MySQL; everything I needed to know about MySQL is online (they have the complete manual up there), though if you can cough up the dough, MySQL boot camp is great way to get started.

As for PHP/Python/Perl, you have to realize that they are primarily used for marking up the webpage (e.g. vBulletin, IINM is just a giant PHP scripts with MySQL storing the posts/threads/users) or as "glue" scripts in any LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/Pxxxx) installation.

In my case, I run a Slackware server with MySQL. No Apache, no PHP/Perl/Python. My Access applications connects to the server via WAN using ssh tunnel; sshd is already built-in to Linux so I just had to provide a library along with Access for the ssh client.

The point being, I wouldn't think of Python as "alternative" to VBA, though it can be used in place of VBA for *some* cases. The issue is that you need to clearly define what you need to have in place, and what program does what job, keeping in mind that sometime a program rolls several jobs in one (like Access, which is actually an IDE, database engine, and file server rolled in one).

One more thing: I just want to clarify that you do *not* have to install a Linux server to run MySQL; if you have a Windows computer, they do have binary for Windows so you can install it on Windows and thus save yourself the hassle of managing a Linux server. In my case, we wanted a dedicated server, didn't have an extra license for Windows Server, so we substituted time for money. Slackware is free, but not cheap in time to market. There are, however, certain packages floating around with Ubuntu+MySQL where you can install and get to login in 15 minutes, but I eschewed this in favor of having more control over the database as the server hardware wasn't exactly new so I wanted to run ultra-lean with minimum tools needed to run the OS and the MySQL.

HTH.

Thanks. Clearly I am out of my element. Thanks for the suggestion of using MySQL under Windows. That may make the eventual transition somewhat easier since I can play with MySQL in the more "familiar" setting of windows.