Hmmm...Where To Begin

[bradwould]

Does anyone have any suggestions for literature (preferrably online and free, but not restricted to) on learning to code. I'm having problems locating a starting point. The help menu assumes you know what your doing and is no help for a beginner.

 

[gromit]

Hi Brad -

I have found the help to be very confusing as well, although once you can master it, it really can "help" find solutions.

It seems like most of the tutorials on the web are geared towards VBA for Excel. This is not necessarily a bad place to start, since Excel is a little more transparent to watch than Access.

Try typing the following into Google and see what turns up
+Access VBA tutorials beginner
+Excell VBA tutorials beginner

I found the Sam's programming books (Teach Yourself Access Programming) to at least be a jumping off point. I found an electronic copy through the local library and was able to get a little orientation that way.

If you are just interested in learning to code (as opposed to VBA) then you might find Javascript an option. There's a lot of informaiton on the web (for free), and it doesn't require any expensive software.

My experience has been that people in forums have been very helpful, as long as you have a specific question, have at least made some reasonable effort to find the answer yourself, and appreciate the fact that they are sharing their knowledge.

Hope that gives you a little bit of a start.

- g

 

[Pat Hartman]

Help provides syntax and occassionally useful examples. The problem is that without some understanding of what you are looking for, it is virtually impossible to make effective use of help. Help is not the correct tool to use to learn a programming language. You might have some success if you are already functional in some other language but if you've never programmed before, help is next to useless.

I think that something like the Access Cookbook by Getz and Baron is a great way to learn by example. It provides dozens of useful procedures that you can either copy or modify for use in your own applications.

 

[bradwould]

I appreciate the suggestions

thank you

 

[reclusivemonkey]

I found Sams "Teach Yourself Micorsoft Access 2002 Programming" to be very helpful. You may be able to pick up some second hand books on Amazon cheap. Also, if you go to the O'Reilly site, they have a lot of exerts/examples you can loot at/download.