Easy Access 11

Rating:
Summary: nice UI for easy usage
Review: Databases described in iridescent colour?! Indeed, that is the theme of this book. You might need sunglasses. I think O'Hara is doing outreach. The use of Microsoft Access is not being confined to a bunch of SQL experts. Instead, the book is aimed at a more general audience, who do not know SQL. Access's strength is in letting such an audience do useful work with relational data, without having to be acquainted with specialised knowledge.

A lot of the book concerns UI issues of how to display data and change that display. As in changing the font or printing a hardcopy. Later sections deal with the more intricate task of editing a table structure, as opposed to simply editing fields in an already existing table. Plus building queries and analysing the results. If you do indeed know SQL, you may be impressed by how Access gives an easy to use UI to all this. Without SQL knowledge, it is hard to appreciate the level of skill subsumed into Access's abilities.