Alison Balter's Mastering Microsoft Access 2000 Development (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alison Balter's Mastering Access 2000 Development is a well-written, well-paced, and comprehensive tutorial on virtually every aspect of the new Access 2000, written for any beginning or intermediate developer. With its notable clarity, this book can put basic Access development within reach of many users.

As an introduction to or a review of Access and database basics, Mastering Access 2000 Development provides a really strong mix of clear explanations (for tables, queries, and reports) that will let you get up and running. One of the best features of this book is its patient introduction to the world of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming. (If you've struggled to use VB/VBA before, these sections can make successful programming accessible to you.)

The decidedly low-end focus of this book doesn't mean that it skimps on more advanced features. Besides showing off the strengths of Access when used with SQL Server (including stored procedures), "black-belt" sections of the book look at Web support and the new Data Access Pages for delivering Web content. Sections on deployment and optimizing Access applications will be invaluable to any working Access developer.

Overall, it's the author's skill at explaining the fundamentals clearly that makes this a strong choice for readers seeking to get more out of the new Access 2000. Mastering Access 2000 Development is perfect for the Access user who wants to break through to successful database programming for the first time. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Access 2000, database basics, queries, reports, form design, VBA, scaling Access to SQL Server, ADO, DAO, client/server, deployment, Microsoft Office Developer (MOD) tools, Data Access Pages and Web support, and advanced features.

Product Description

Alison's book takes a highly technical topic and presents it in a manner that is easy to comprehend. You'll want to read it from cover to cover, but it can also act as an excellent reference. Learn thorough knowledge of Access application development, real-world solutions to specific development and programming problems, and professional programming techniques backed by concise, no-nonsense explanations of the underlying theories. Debugging and troubleshooting methods are also included.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1392 pages
• Publisher: Sams (July 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672314843
• ISBN-13: 978-0672314841
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #282,430 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good intermediate Access Developer's tutorial and reference, April 26, 2000

By	"charles_t" (Johannesburg, South Africa) - See all my reviews

I learnt VBA with this book and was very pleased with the clear style presented. Having done some IT training and writing myself, I can attest that Alison's style is very easy and enjoyable to read.

I thought the sections on Queries and Forms - and their integration with each other - were particularly powerful. e.g. being able to specify a call to a VBA function in a query design page is something that's really neat as far as I'm concerned.

I reserved one star because: - I would have liked to have seen a detailed chapter on Jet SQL. MS Access allows one - by and large - to avoid directly writing SQL, but a serious developer needs to know it in detail. - Although the chapter on ADO was excellent, and a very clear introduction - as far as it went, I would have preferred to have seen more ADO and ADOX examples.

My main reasons for purchasing the book were: - to learn Access VBA - to become a 'power developer' of Access queries and forms - to develop Access GUIs - to introduce myself to ADO

This book satisfied those requirements to the extent that I don't think I need another Access 2000 book.

The book is complete and covers every possible type of Access activity, including issues like replication, using Access as a GUI to SQL Server, Active Data Pages, security, even doing version maintenance with Visual Sourcesafe.

I would be interested to see a comparison between this book and its main competition - "Access 2000 Developers Handbook, Volumes I & II"

69 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent reference to aspiring Access developers, February 16, 2000

By	Glenn Cullum (Milton Keynes, England) - See all my reviews

This book is an excellent reference book for any aspiring Access developer for all levels of experience.

The book has 5 main parts. Part I the Basics Of Access Development covers all the essential stuff but with enough depth to be of real use, eg Report events was particularly useful. It gives the right amount of attention to VBA, and objectively discusses the key differences between DAO and ADO. The focus is rightly with ADO for the rest of the book.

After giving critical coverage to subjects such as debugging, error handling and optimising applications in Part II, the author deals with more advanced development, notably advanced programming techniques (which she neatly refers to as "black belt programming"), multiuser & enterprise applications, and excellent material on security and using Microsoft Office Developer to package and distribute applications.

It's all there! A highly readable and highly recommended book.

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, readable, and well targeted., November 29, 1999

By	Alex Strasheim (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

The main strength of this book is Balter's ability to explain both the specific technical details of Access as well as the more philosophical principles that underlie the design decisions you have to make when you build a database. It's a very long book, which is often a sign of poorly chosen or organized information, but she does a good job both of selecting what to talk about, and presenting it clearly. Although I wouldn't say I couldn't put it down (as another reviewer here did) I do agree that it's a very well written book that is about as easy to read as any technical book dealing with a complex subject. To put it another way, if all tech books were written this well, my life would be a lot easier.