Recommendations on books for ACCESS 2010 (1 Viewer)

[ZikO]

Hi,

I have been dealing with ACCESS 2010 for some time and I would really like to learn this program much more than what I have achieved now. I realised I need a solid book to speed up the learning process and clear up many concepts I still don't understand or misunderstand.

I am afraid I cannot specify what I really need because I am probably still not aware of many things. For sure I need an introduction to VBA with progression to advanced stage--I don't want to end up with simplest examples.

one of the websites gave me some ideas what ACCESS is. I am aware there is a couple of libraries such as MS Access Library Model (AOL), MS Database Object Library, MS ActiveX Object Library, WinAPI and ADO.NET. I know they are there but I am at this stage that I would rather guess how to use them. Essentially, I would like to have a book that have a solid introduction to VBA and anything that is required. I expect to have no problem to read MSDN and extend my skills by myself after the lecture of such book.

I found "ACCESS 2010 Bible" by Michael R. Groh on Amazon and it looks pretty well. Electronic version is not expensive. However, I read some opinions and not everyone was happy with that book.

Please, I would really need an advice on that because some books are really expensive.

Thank you.

 

[MarkK]

Obviously people learn things in different ways, but I don't recommend a book, I recommend setting a meaningful objective and working to implement it. Maybe you would read a single chapter in a book, or you'd google, or you'd search this site, or post a question here.

When I read a book about the specific details of how a particular product works the information has no context so I don't remember it. I learn by doing, and having the experience of encountering a specific difficulty, researching the solution, and then feeling the reward of successfully solving the problem. A book doesn't provide this experience, and no single book will be comprehensive enough to take you everywhere you'll need to go to get good at anything.

Set a feature or system or UI or programming goal you currently don't know how to do. Implement a Treeview, Listview, write a class, research why you'd use a class, make a progress bar, write a generic search window you just throw SQL at, for a few ideas, and learn specifically what you need to at each step of that process using the full spectrum of reference resources.

That's my 2c. And you'll save a few bucks.

 

[spikepl]

I concur with Lagbolt, that having a real problem to solve in the learning context is really fruitful.

But - the most important thing to learn is how to locate information. For this you need the concepts and lingo belonging to Access and Access/VBA. 15 years ago the quality of a book you'd invest 50 buck in was pretty paramount. Now? You need the book to understand examples and how things are called, so you can find them yourself in the help system, and on Google. SO the quelity of the book is not that important any more. Also, amazon sells used books. I have also bought many cheap used books on programming topics from the US-based Powells.com (their cheapest shipping takes 4-6 weeks to deliver overseas, but it does work)

Access has a pretty reasonable helpfile, that can be accessed in various ways directly from the coding window (find out how) or elsewhere in Access, and also the Intellisense - stuff that pops up while you type. For some reason many questions asked in these fora are asked by ineffective people, who never understood how to look for help in the helpfile or to take advantage of Intellisense or to chuck their error text into google and see what pops up. What a waste ...

 

[mahenkj2]

I am using Access bible and found it very useful but I am sure it is not the whole thing you are looking for. The book may be complete in itself but Access and VBA is so wide that one book may not be enough. At least at some level, you would consider that as a basic book. Although, you get some sample databases and codes with that, so it gives you a jump start. (after using that at least I improved appearance and features of my dB very much)

As others said, today you have lot of resources altogether and you may start making small projects, always try to make something innovative and then in process of that you learn very fast.

 

[mdlueck]

I am using Access bible and found it very useful but I am sure it is not the whole thing you are looking for.

I picked up the MS Access 2007 Bible (published by John Wiley), which I still refer to.

This site, and a stash of favorite threads I keep in my electronic "hip pocket" are of gigantic value. Various things were simply not covered in the book, such as:

Example of SQL INSERT / UPDATE using ADODB.Command and ADODB.Parameters objects to Access tables
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=219149

I am glad I had a copy of some Access 2000 book published by Que as in it I learned more about Combo Box controls and defining their source in a SQL query... but then I totally blew away what I was doing with Access 2000 on this thread:

Need to add static entry to a SQL populated Combo Box - UNION Query Example
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=219692&page=3#post1178814

So, some books are very helpful for a specific point in time... and once that point is past, perhaps you will never open the book again.

 

[ZikO]

Hi,
Thank you for your answers. I am aware of situation these days. I know there are enormous quantity of resources and I realise that. Many times, however, those resources assume a minimum level of knowledge and I am afraid I am not quite there, yet. I found a good tutorial which may help me with that. I am glad you answered. I'll wait with buying the book or I'll buy it from a second hand.

 

[Solo712]

Hi,

I have been dealing with ACCESS 2010 for some time and I would really like to learn this program much more than what I have achieved now. I realised I need a solid book to speed up the learning process and clear up many concepts I still don't understand or misunderstand.

I am afraid I cannot specify what I really need because I am probably still not aware of many things. For sure I need an introduction to VBA with progression to advanced stage--I don't want to end up with simplest examples.

one of the websites gave me some ideas what ACCESS is. I am aware there is a couple of libraries such as MS Access Library Model (AOL), MS Database Object Library, MS ActiveX Object Library, WinAPI and ADO.NET. I know they are there but I am at this stage that I would rather guess how to use them. Essentially, I would like to have a book that have a solid introduction to VBA and anything that is required. I expect to have no problem to read MSDN and extend my skills by myself after the lecture of such book.

I found "ACCESS 2010 Bible" by Michael R. Groh on Amazon and it looks pretty well. Electronic version is not expensive. However, I read some opinions and not everyone was happy with that book.

Please, I would really need an advice on that because some books are really expensive.

Thank you.

For my money, the best Access 2010 VBA title is Andrew Crouch's 'Access 2010 VBA Programming Inside Out'

I like it because Crouch is a superb programmer (to take nothing away from Groh, Conrad, etc.) and has a way to present his material in a very systematic and readable way. As an old programming horse, returning to do some serious work after twenty odd years, I found Andrew's book to just what the doctor ordered. There is one section which alone is worth the price of the book: the "z" table design of multiple Access backends (Test, Dev, Prod). Saved me a month of research and coding !

I warmly recommend his book to anyone on a steeper Access learning curve.

Best,
Jiri

 

[Rx_]

Back in Access 95 - 97 days, I was an Access Programming trainer on the road about 30 weeks a year. Had a lot of time in airports, hotels before the internet and cell phone. Wrote an article or two along the way. One was on this subject. Back then, out of 22 books, I could only recommend 2. The rest were just a re-formatted text of the MS Access users guide.
Well, it is not as good as it was back then:
download.microsoft.com/.../ Microsoft%20Access%202010%20Product%20Guide_Final.pdf
And for programming:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff965871(v=office.14).aspx

Still, there is some great informtion and material that all the other books will borrow.

The other thing I am renewing tomorrow (on the Myan End of the World) is my Microsoft Partner (MAPS) program. It is not that expensive when you as a developer consider that it includes use of all the software.
My New Year's Resolution is going to be - take the on-line classes.
You should be able to check it out on-line - the list of courses.
Some of them are a terminal-server with the course set up for each individual lesson.

As MS Access as we currently know it is fading away since MS wants it to be more like Share Point in 2013 - my goal is to leverage my knowled of Excel and SQL Server.

The coding book mentioned above - sounds great. The company I own is going Christmas shopping for its only employee tonight - will look into that one. Of course I will wrap it! At my age, it will be a complete surprise on Christmas morning.

 

[Solo712]

Back in Access 95 - 97 days, I was an Access Programming trainer on the road about 30 weeks a year. Had a lot of time in airports, hotels before the internet and cell phone. Wrote an article or two along the way. One was on this subject. Back then, out of 22 books, I could only recommend 2. The rest were just a re-formatted text of the MS Access users guide.
Well, it is not as good as it was back then:
download.microsoft.com/.../ Microsoft%20Access%202010%20Product%20Guide_Final.pdf
And for programming:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff965871(v=office.14).aspx

Still, there is some great informtion and material that all the other books will borrow.

The other thing I am renewing tomorrow (on the Myan End of the World) is my Microsoft Partner (MAPS) program. It is not that expensive when you as a developer consider that it includes use of all the software.
My New Year's Resolution is going to be - take the on-line classes.
You should be able to check it out on-line - the list of courses.
Some of them are a terminal-server with the course set up for each individual lesson.

As MS Access as we currently know it is fading away since MS wants it to be more like Share Point in 2013 - my goal is to leverage my knowled of Excel and SQL Server.

The coding book mentioned above - sounds great. The company I own is going Christmas shopping for its only employee tonight - will look into that one. Of course I will wrap it! At my age, it will be a complete surprise on Christmas morning.

Very funny...have the same problem, though !

BTW, the name of the author is 'Couch' as in 'to relax on' not, 'Crouch' like in 'go, Stoke City!'.

Best,
Jiri