Beginning Access 2002 VBA (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

by Robert Smith (Author), Dave Sussman (Author), Ian Blackburn (Author), John Colby (Author), Mark Horner (Author), Martin Reid (Author), Paul Turley (Author), Helmut Watson (Author) "In this chapter, we've worked our way through the process of creating part of an Access application with one aim in mind - to deliberately..." (more)
Key Phrases: frmcompany form, tblcompany table, intelligent navigation buttons, Microsoft Access, End Function, Visual Basic (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Access 2002 is the core database application within the Office XP suite. This book focuses on the programming language that underlies Access 2002 (and all the other office products) – VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).

While you can achieve a great deal in Access without ever knowing anything about programming, sooner or later you will want to develop applications with greater scope and flexibility, and a professional feel and functionality - this is where VBA comes into its own.

Using VBA with Access is an incredibly powerful technique as, amongst other things, it allows you to create custom user interfaces, to automate complex tasks, to integrate Access with other parts of the Office suite, and to provide enhanced security for your database.

VBA has a very simple syntax which makes it an ideal starting place for novice programmers and a perfect lead in to Microsoft's popular programming language, Visual Basic. This book covers everything you need to gain the confidence and knowledge to go away and begin to write your own programs. All the concepts are illustrated with plenty of interesting and practical examples and exercises.

This book is a revision of the best-selling Beginning Access 97 and Beginning Access 2000 VBA books, reworked to provide a rich tutorial to programming Access 2002 with VBA. New material covers the enhanced XML, integrating with SQL Server Desktop Engine, and so on.

From the Publisher
This book is for the Access user who already has a basic knowledge of databases, and the basic objects of an Access database, and now wishes to expand on their existing knowledge of Access by learning to program in VBA. No prior knowledge of programming is necessary.

This book will also be useful to readers who have programmed a little in other languages, perhaps Visual Basic or VBScript, and need a primer into VBA and its use within Access. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 976 pages
• Publisher: Wrox (February 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764544020
• ISBN-13: 978-0764544026
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #476,159 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Start, but loses it about 150 pages into the book, July 28, 2003

By	Spider Monkey (Marlboro, MA United States) - See all my reviews

I knew how to do all the basics in access, Make forms, reports, basic queries, and basic access pages--so I got this book hoping to expand on the one area i was foreign to--VBA.

The first 150 pages were great, very clear and like any WROX book, they do these 'do it yourself' examples where they make you type out some code.

After roughly page 150, I began to get sucked into a quagmire of theory and less and less practical application. I went into this book hoping to answer the single question 1. What practical uses of VBA can i employ in my bio-tech work environment? As I proceeded into the book I realized that I was being lost in theory and -0- practical application. The book sure tells you what an Array is, what Functions are, Methods, operators, etc--but you know what? I sure wish there were some practical examples! good lord, there is an entire chapter on the history of DAO stuck in the middle of useful information.

This book for the most part is a massive amount of theory which is used in THEIR context, not one that one could think 'hey..that might be useful!'---on page 226 I realized I had found something that might be useful to me: a way to count how many records are in a table. Excellent. It only took 226 pages to get there. But other than that--I have 250 pages of information stored in my brain and can't think of any practical use for them! The book has a large 'ice cream' database that it uses for examples, but its really really just not very helpful.

Its method of teaching I think contains way too much theory and far too little practical training and experience. If you already know VBA or another language, sure this will be a decent review--but if you don't know any language well like me, but you DO know access fairly well minus the VB aspect, this book will leave you clueless at the entrance of chapter 5.

My favorite line? Page 228 "You should be getting a feel for the VBA code by now, so we won't explain every line that we write"

Ah, wonderful--not only am I left in the dust due to excessive amounts of theory which I have not been able to use, but now they're not going to explain every line.

Anyway, I usually like the Wrox books--like their javascript book, but this one is just terrible. If you are new and you want something to help you with the fundamental uses of VBA and its practical application, LOOK ELSEWHERE. If you want a reference book on how specific areas in VBA work--this book will be a decent refresher.

Ethan

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book to use to come up to speed, May 11, 2003

By	J. J. Kwashnak "voracious reader" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Beginning Access 2002 VBA (Paperback)

A number of books out there look at Visual Basic for Applications, but this is the only one so far that focuses on the newest version of Access. I found this book to be invaluable in cutting through the clutter and getting me straight to the practical applications of VBA. The authors take you through basic programming tenants but don't dwell on them. Rather they jump into examples that are very interactive and instructive. Their examples are clear and are good starting points to expand from on your own. It is not an exhaustive reference, but you benefit from it more if you have some decent Access experience. If you don't know a database, you are not going to learn here. But in just a few weeks after reading this book, I find myself going again and again into the examples as starting points for my own projects. And it is amazing how a little bit of programming will impress the users.

There are a couple of mistakes in the book that can inhibit your code from running. In addition, the database supplied has dates of 1998 and 99, but the book uses dates in 2001, so you have to adjust your code in order to get results. And unfortunately WROX has shut down its errata area so you can't really get help with these problems. So don't assume if your code doesn't work, it is your fault. This is where the code on the CD can be helpful - if it doesn't run right it's the program, not the programmer.

Overall with a little patience and work, you can get a huge amount of help from this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Try it out, Why it didn't work?, August 2, 2003

By A Customer

It is not for beginners. It should be called "An Introduction to Access VBA", because it is very theoretical, and the authors seem not have the knowledge of the difficulties the beginners in programming are faced, when trying to run the code by simply copying it from the text.For example, in the ulterior version refering to Access 97, if you dont have the cursor on the name of the procedure or function you wont get it running when the run button or run menu is clicked. That is an information that a beginning book should teach to beginners. This version, refering to Access 2002, is enlarged by new interesting contributions, like to specify records that should be reported using a filter form.I like the way Wrox books are formated, but this book miss revision in text and code.As a beginner in VBA, I can bear errors in text, but when neither the code on the book or on the CD runs, I am disappointed and I would advise only skilled programmers willing to find out why the code didn't work to buy the book.Until a full revision be done, beginners dont buy it. I am longing for a Microsoft Team Access 2002 VBA Step by Step, or a Beginning Access 2002 VBA by John Connell.