What's next? Educational direction.

[Novice]

I have just recently finished my first database project thanks to all of you
and your support and patience. I've read various books on Access and I've
just finished reading database deisgn for mere mortals which was a real eye
opener.

Now I feel like a junkie though I just can't get enough of this database
stuff but I'm not sure which area I need to study to progress. I'm some what
confused about the uses of VBA for Access and SQL and if I need to (or
should) learn them both.

I want to be able to design and implement databases for small to medium work
groups over a network, and I was looking at something like the free version
of SQL 2005 Express for the server and Access as the front end. I'm just not
sure where I need to start.

Any advice is appreciated, or if some other subject matter needs to be
learned first please let me know.

Thank you.

 

[Mr B]

Novice,
Congratulations on completing your first project. That's a milestone in
itself.

As for where to go from here, just contiinue to learn as much as you can
about Access. I have been using it since version 2.0 and to this day, I
learn something new everyday. This is one very powerful tool.

You will probably need to learn as much as you can about VBA and SQL.
Neither is exclusive of the other. I just would not know how to accomplish
many of the things that are asked of me without the use of both, together.

One of the major things that you did not mention, is the Web thing. This is
an area that you would do well to consider in you learning curve. Managing
data over the Web is and will be a major part of data management in the
future.

There are many tools that you can explore for this.

Good luck with your endevors.

Mr B

 

[Novice]

Thanks for your imput.
Could you, or anyone explain in laymans terms what is the difference
between VBA and SQL, I know to use VBA to script the modules in Access, but
being new I'm not exactly sure where SQL fits in.
And when you mention the web thing, any suggestions as to some overview
material to get started on the right track?

Thanks.

 

[John Vinson]

Thanks for your imput.
Could you, or anyone explain in laymans terms what is the difference
between VBA and SQL, I know to use VBA to script the modules in Access, but
being new I'm not exactly sure where SQL fits in.
And when you mention the web thing, any suggestions as to some overview
material to get started on the right track?

VBA is a procedural programming language (ultimately derived from
Basic, if you're old enough to remember it). It's the language of
modules; it has features like If... Then... Else... End If blocks, DO
loops, and all of the programming structures you'ld find in any
programming language (such as C, FORTRAN, PL/I or innumerable others).

SQL - Structured Query Language, though you can get into some fine old
fights about the actual origin of the acronym - is utterly different.
It's a nonprocedural, SET-oriented language for structuring relational
queries. A SQL statement "Happens all at once" rather than going from
line 1 to line 2 to line 3, jumping, or looping; it has a series of
(mostly optional) "clauses" which perform different functions. A
possible simple SQL query would be (in summary form)

SELECT field, field, field, calculated expression, field, calculated
expression
FROM sometable JOIN anothertable ON thisfield = thatfield
WHERE some set of criteria
ORDER BY thisfield, thatfield;

This Query would use the JOIN clause to connect "sometable" to
"anothertable"; the query engine would inspect the records returned by
this join and apply the criteria in the WHERE clause to limit which
records are returned; they would then be sorted into the order
specified by the ORDER BY clause; and the user would be presented with
all of the surviving records, and shown the fields (or the results of
the expressions) in the SELECT clause.

You can't freely mix SQL and VBA (as you can to some extent in other
languages such as SQL/Server T-SQL or Oracle SQL Procs), though you
can build up a SQL string in a string variable in VBA and then execute
it or use it as the recordsource of a Form or Query.

The Query Grid is NOT "the query" - it's simply a user-friendly (well,
friendlier than a blank SQL editor page) method to construct SQL
strings. The SQL string is the "real query".

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Novice]

Thank you.