Books!

[Leo_Coroneos]

Hey guys,

Just wondering what kind of books the community refer to in order to get better at Access? I have the following books:

Nene (R) Guide to Microsoft Access 2000 by Jill & Tony Luha (passed on from a schoolmate, just breezed through it because I know most of what it involves; seems like the basic principles of Access haven't changed all that much since then!)

Microsoft Access 2016 Programming Pocket Primer by Julitta Korol (just got it in the mail and am up to the section on VBE)

Access 2016 Bible by Michael Alexander (still waiting for it to arrive in the mail)

What do you guys read, if anything? Anything you can suggest to complement this reading material, for someone who is intermediate level of learning?

Cheers,
Leo C.

 

[Leo_Coroneos]

Thanks for the recommendation and your reply. To get off-topic a bit, I am currently racking my brains over a particular problem: see my thread entitled "Opening report based on current Order" in the Reports forum of Access World Forums. I wonder if you could have a look and help out?

Cheers,
Leo C.

 

[Leo_Coroneos]

By the way, why might I be concerned that Access is on its last legs?

Seems like the perfect solution for my client, who needs to keep track of his accounts and orders, and to do it electronically.

Personally, I like Access, hence my purchase of the books I cited above.

 

[ButtonMoon]

By the way, why might I be concerned that Access is on its last legs?

Umm, perhaps the fact that it is a niche product which Microsoft has left in suspended animation for over a decade. In the same period the market-leading products covering some of the same core capabilities (rapid application development, data management, data analytics, reporting) have seen an incredible amount of change and innovation.

Nobody has mentioned any good database design books yet. How about: Beginning Database Design by Clare Churcher; Practical Issues in Database Management (Fabian Pascal); Database Systems, the Complete Book (Garcia-Molina, Ullman, Widom)

 

[isladogs]

Thanks for the recommendation and your reply. To get off-topic a bit, I am currently racking my brains over a particular problem: see my thread entitled "Opening report based on current Order" in the Reports forum of Access World Forums. I wonder if you could have a look and help out?

Leo C.

Have you looked at my last reply to that thread?

 

[Mark_]

For books, I'd actually recommend a different source for your reading... Forum posts.

Try to figure out the answer to someone's question. You'll often find that what research you put in to figuring out not only their problem but a solution (as well as if their approach to their problem is correct) will teach you far more than any book I've ever read.

 

[Leo_Coroneos]

Have you looked at my last reply to that thread?

I have now. Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it.

 

[Leo_Coroneos]

Cheers gents, I'll keep those ideas and suggestions in mind.

@Mark, I'll see what I can do in the way of helping others out around here and just making myself useful in general.

@Pat, I don't like videos that much, I prefer books or something "tangible" that I can read offline of my all-too-small laptop. (Might have to upgrade my desktop computer to a Windows 10 box at some point, probably next year.) However, I've just bookmarked "LearnAccessByCrystal" on YouTube for future reference.

I'll let you guys know how I go with Julitta Korol's Access programming primer and the Access 2016 Bible.

We were all trained in Access (2013) at South Regional TAFE, where I completed my Certificates III and IV in Information Technology. The lecturer offered no hints or even the slightest suggestion that it might be going obsolete, and my current client likes the idea of me using the software that HE has purchased for our utility in order to get his business running more efficiently.

I'll keep you all up to date. Kind regards from Aus

 

[Leo_Coroneos]

Just got my Access 2016 Bible (by Michael Alexander and Dick Kusleika) in the mail. It's HUGE!

I am skipping through the first few chapters to see what I can glean from the book's intermediate-level contents... my housemate took one look at the huge tome and said, "well, I'll see ya in a fortnight!" (referring of course to me studying it intently!)

Hahah, I'll be busy studying it for sure, as well as my VBA programming primer. Been taking notes in an exercise book, I find this helps me memorise and assimilate critical concepts.

 

[jleach]

I've been a big fan of Wrox Professional Programmers series for many years. When I first got into Access I picked up a copy of their Access 2003 Programming book and still refer to it to this day when I need to do a collection class.

Since then I've read the 2010, 2013 and 2016 ones as well. 2010 is meh, covering Web Database (SP versions) which of course are defunct, and 2013 covered the usual regulars but with a focus on AWAs (also a dead avenue). 2016 is a bit more filled out and has updated information on ribbons and some of the newer features, so if you want a newer one that would be my recommendation. I do still tend to think that the 2003 version was much better though, having none of the new-yet-useless features since 2007 that the authors had to cover. The Inside Out books tend to get high praise as well, though I've never been through one myself. The author, Jeff Conrad aka the Access Junkie, was an MVP for years then hired by Microsoft and worked on the Access team for additional years. Probably wouldn't be a waste of money.

For SQL related stuff, anything by John Visceas (SQL for mere mortals). Another recent recipe-like book by a number of big names is called Effective SQL: 61 Specific Ways to Write Better SQL. Both of these though will pretty much ignore the query designer in favor of writing raw SQL, which is not a bad thing, IMO, though maybe not for starters.

There's a bunch of other areas besides just Access that can greatly improve your skills. Code Complete by Steve McConnell is one of the best books on the topic of writing code that I've ever read. Everyone should have a copy. SQL Performance Explained is superb, taking the relative layman into the black box that is the internals of the relational database engine. Software Requirements (3rd ed., MS Press) is a great book on what's probably the most boring topic there can be. Head First software development can help with how to manage a project. Sometimes they feel akin to "for dummies" books, but for a good general overview they're usually not a waste of money.

Learning other languages can be a huge help as well. If you have anything in mind let me know, I can probably offer a review of something there as well.

 

[isladogs]

Another excellent source of info is of course the many sites specialising in advice and examples for Access.

Here is a small selection of those I use regularly :
http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html (Allen Browne)

http://access.mvps.org/access/datetime/index.html (Dev Ashish)

http://codekabinett.com/index.php?Lang=2 (Phillip Stiefel)

http://www.helenfeddema.com/ (Helen Feddema aka Access Archon)

There are many more ...

Also excellent though more targeted at Excel is
http://www.cpearson.com/Excel/MainPage.aspx (Chip Pearson)

There are numerous excellent videos on You Tube
The best is probably the extensive series targeted at everybody from Beginner to Advanced by Steve Bishop (over 100 in all)

Tony Hine (Uncle Gizmo) also has many very good videos online

There are also many good videos on the Datapig website:
http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/AccessMain.htm - fairly old but still worth looking at

 

[MarkK]

If you write code at all, you should read Clean Code, by Robert C. Martin

imo,
Mark

 

[isladogs]

Frankly, I think by providing lots of reference sources other than AWF, all of us who have contributed suggestions, including myself, should be instantly banned for advertising.

For further information, please see this thread starting at post 7
https://access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=297262

EDIT - partly in case anyone doesn't realise I'm joking....
The Clean Code book looks great but the reviews state its written for java.
If anyone knows a good VBA equivalent, I'd be interested

 

[jdraw]

Leo,
I realize the subject here is Books!, but I'd like to mention that there are a number of free youtube videos by "Uncle Bob" (Robert C Martin) related to programming, design, code improvement....

A couple of books for the list:
Database Design for Mere Mortals by Michael Hernandez
SimplySQL by Rudy Limeback (used to be a free pdf)

Like others, I find some of the older books, including Access '97 Developers Handbook useful (maybe nostalgic as Tony mentioned).

I often mention this link to people getting into, or back into, database. It's pretty basic, but good for concepts.

 

[MarkK]

The Clean Code book looks great but the reviews state its written for java.
If anyone knows a good VBA equivalent, I'd be interested

The ideas in Clean Code are about programming, and in respect to programming, Java is a VBA equivalent.

 

[Solo712]

Frankly, I think by providing lots of reference sources other than AWF, all of us who have contributed suggestions, including myself, should be instantly banned for advertising.

For further information, please see this thread starting at post 7
https://access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=297262

EDIT - partly in case anyone doesn't realise I'm joking....
The Clean Code book looks great but the reviews state its written for java.
If anyone knows a good VBA equivalent, I'd be interested

Colin, the best reference book on VBA that I know of (and use myself) is Andrew Couch'es Access 2010 VBA Programming Inside Out...

Best,
Jiri

 

[jleach]

Clean Code covers OOP in general, be it Java or C#. His stuff is equally applicable to both, but many of the concepts just don't transfer to VBA.

That said, I've always been on the fence about Uncle Bob's work. Good intro to things for beginners in OOP, but seems to have a tendency to take a person quarter of the way there and leave it as "ok that's enough" with an implication that it's really the correct way, even though it's not (as if he were too lazy to explain the implications). As such, you tend to get scores of people saying "but that's the way he said to do it and his work is popular so it must be right!"

I'd much rather read something from Martin Fowler or Dino Esposito.

 

[isladogs]

Colin, the best reference book on VBA that I know of (and use myself) is Andrew Couch'es Access 2010 VBA Programming Inside Out...

Best,
Jiri

Thanks for the suggestion. I checked & already have that in ebook format though I have to admit I've hardly ever looked at it.

In fact the last Access book I bought was Microsoft Access 2013 Inside Out by Jeff Conrad (Access Junkie). After ordering it some 4 years ago, I changed my mind & cancelled the order. The book turned up nevertheless & I was told by the vendor I could keep it for free.

Its certainly no reflection on the book or the author but it also remains to this day practically unused.

Some other ebooks that I own but don't refer to...

TBH I have loads of Access books dating back to Access 97 but can't remember when I last looked at any of them.
Its certainly not that I know everything. Just that Google searches are so much easier ....