Microsoft Access 2000/Visual Basic for Applications Fundamentals

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Beginner's Book
Review: Before I started I knew some VBA and some Access. This book helped to me learn the things I needed to know. Well written, organized, accurate.

It's NOT a good tutorial on either VBA or Access, tho.

Rating:
Summary: THE best book for the absolute beginner
Review: Callahan takes the newbie by the hand and reviews the basics of VBA in a very useful and easy to understand style. If you've mastered the basics of Access and want to see how they do all that cool stuff in forms and reports, this is a great place to start. BUT if you've already done a little programming, this book will waste your time! Go for Beginning Access 2000 VBA by Sussman and Smith. A true intermediate book which no one should try to read until they know some of the fundamentals and a book I keep right next to Access Developers Handbook.

Rating:
Summary: Great beginner's book
Review: Great book to use if you have never programmed in VBA before. The examples are relevant and there is enough information to get you on the road to more advanced topics. Would have given 5 stars but at times the book has a bit of a "do this, this and that" attitude and not enough "Here's why you are doing this, this and that"

Rating:
Summary: Very helpful for beginners!
Review: I earned the Access MOUS designation, but that left me far from being a proficient Access app developer. VBA takes you to the next step by enabling you to link your forms, and this book spells out the basics well. For example, the recordset concept was a tough one for me to grasp prior to reading this book.

As the title states and the content follows, "Fundamentals" are what the newbie needs to concentrate on. I'm ready to tackle bigger and badder books after working through this one.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent at the Fundamentals
Review: I tried a "Dummies" book when trying to first learn Access programming (albeit Access '97) and found that the "Dummies" book presumed too much and was riddled with errors. Although this book is only aimed at "fundamentals" of writing code with Access 2000, it does a great job; I have worked through 3 of the 4 parts so far and have only found one error; the explanations are clear, the steps simple, and the practicality of everything that is taught is great. A person will want to go on from here but this is as fast and as clear as the beginner wants to go. I noticed another reviewer saying the book was expensive but I disagree - when anything is this clear and useful, esp. for beginners, it is worth it in all the saved time and frustration. Good job, Mr. Callahan and thanks for making my days.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Beginners
Review: So you have created your Access database and have exhausted every wizard and control that you can use without actually coding. You still need a little something, but aren't sure how to get a little (or a lot) more out of Access - then this is the book for you.
This book will ease you into writing come code while jumping right in with both feet. The examples are simple enough to understand, but you are given enough information to make them work for you. Many times when you are beginning, the example is exactly what you want to do, but you are not given enough information to insert it into your project and make it work - this is not the case here. I had this book (and its predicessor) open on my desk regularly during my first Access project and still crack it open for ideas and reference. (Sure I could look it up in an advanced book - but why?)
If you can only buy one beginner book on VBA - this should be it.

Rating:
Summary: A simplified overview of application development with VBA
Review: The book is an introduction to the technique used within VBA programming and shows in very general terms how and what can be achieved, by using VBA to program Access 2000. It is only useful for a limited audience since it is neither an introductory programming book, nor a VBA reference book.

If you have no previous programming experience, I recommend "Learn to program with Visual Basic 6" by John Smiley (ISBN 1902745000), which will give you a solid programming foundation to build upon. If you have programming experience, I recommend "Applications Development in Access 2000" by Baldwin and Paradice (ISBN 076007108X).

Of the so-called "Real-world Business Examples" as stated on the cover, you will find several of them to be "cold-coded". Which means the results are static and written directly into the code. One of the very first things you will be warned against in most programming courses.

The book shows an example of automated data entry, in which the application automatically writes the city, state/province and country based on the postal code entered. If you followed the book's example you would have to include every single combination in your code! Imagine the work needed to update and maintain the data, let alone write several lines of code for every postal code.

It gave me many ideas on how I could add automation to my applications, but not the knowledge to actually do it.

Rating:
Summary: Typical Microsoft Garbage
Review: The only thing this book accomplishes is to let you know some of the things that can be done with Access. It gives you examples and says copy this and see how it works. It does very little in the way of explaing why or how something works and it does nothing to help you write your own real world code. If you have VBA programming experience you are already far ahead of this book, if you don't it still will not help you. Save your money and look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Beginner's Book
Review: This book helped me a lot. I was at the point where I knew the basics of Access, but nothing about writing code. This book is excellent for taking you by the hand and helping you to start learning VBA. Another feature I really like is that the examples are examples that you are likely to find useful for the application you are developing. So I was able to got a very practical use out of this book (the Access 97 version is very similar).
On the negative side, sometimes the book gives poor explainations. For example, they never really explain why create variables, what's the advantage. There are several similar areas where the author simply never thought of explaining something that, to a beginner, is very confusing without an explaination.
So, by itself, the book is very helpful but you need other books to fill in the gaps. However, as far as I've seen, it's the best book I've seen to get you started in VBA.

Rating:
Summary: Great book on real world uses for Access
Review: This book shows you how to create Access application solutions using Visual Basic. Unlike other access books, you will use the knowledge you gain from this book. The no nonsense presentation is a welcome for Access developers. This should probably be your second book though since it deals only on visual basic issues. You need to have knowledge of relational database concepts before you read this book.

Would have liked to see more on active X component development, but it is a fundamentals book therefore it gets a 5 star. This book is not for someone who has advanced Access skills.