Hi, Alok.
I would like to work with a MVP or access
trained person, who is based in Thane, Mumbai, India. Can anybody direct me
to such a person or his address - contact number:
Unfortunately, there aren't that many MVP's in your neck of the woods, and
an "Access-trained person" probably doesn't know enough yet to teach you what
you really need to learn -- if you intend to become good at it. You need to
find someone who's very knowledgeable on the subject, and that comes from
hands-on experience, far beyond what's available from most text books or
current certification standards.
none teach you the heart of access or
any database application programming., that is how do crytsallize your
thought in to fields and then decide which tables should have what fields and
how to relate the tables.
Solid relational database design is the foundation for a reliable,
productive database application. Basically, one builds a model of a system,
either one that exists or one envisioned, in order to build a structure that
stores the data in such a way that valuable information can be produced from
that data. One can take formal classes or read books on relational database
design to learn the fundamentals, but to really become good at it takes a lot
of practice. A _lot_ of practice.
A word of advice. Build the table structures and relationships first, then
the queries. Afterwards, build the forms and reports to get valid data input
and to produce meaningful informational output. Most people try to build the
forms first for the data input, and try to adjust the tables and queries to
compensate, but usually end up running into failure and outright disasters.
Theory is fine, but i would like to have my hands
on some practical, workshop for novices where I can create 5-6 databeses
from scratch and work my way upwards.
Formal college courses will give you this initial experience, but it's
generally only one to three small databases built per course (or a bunch of
"partial" database solutions to solve specific problems), so you'd need to
take a sequence of courses. However, there's no reason why you can't do this
on your own. You may be interested in a few online tutorials and sample
databases, so I've included a few links. Download the samples and study
them. As an exercise, make copies of these files and modify the copies to
add additional functionality without taking away existing functionality.
http://www.sfubusiness.ca/motmba/courses/bus756/shared/pages/tutorials.html
http://cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu/holowczak/classes/2200/access/accessall.html#sec_intro
http://www.techonthenet.com/access/tutorials/vbadebug/debug01.php
http://www.functionx.com/access/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/bapp2000/html/mdbdownload.asp
Jeff Conrad's (MVP) big list has about every destination on the Internet
that might help you become a good Access developer. Check out these:
http://home.bendbroadband.com/conradsystems/accessjunkie/resources.html#DatabaseModels
http://home.bendbroadband.com/conradsystems/accessjunkie/resources.html#DatabaseDesign101
http://home.bendbroadband.com/conradsystems/accessjunkie/resources.html#Tutorial
So I want to work with somebody trained in access as I am hooked on to it
and I would like to become a good access programmer one day.
If you want to become good, you'll need someone with skills beyond just
"trained in Access." The real experts are very difficult to find in person,
but you have a tremendous resource here on the Internet. There are plenty of
experts in the newsgroups who are willing to help folks of all skill levels
build their database applications, as well as help them learn more about
databases in general. And you don't even have to be on the same continent as
the experts you're conversing with. The Internet makes these experts easily
available to anyone, around the clock.
I guess you guys have had a formal training or a degree in access from your
IT schools? Am I right?
I seem to be in the minority in that I've had formal database training as an
undergraduate and graduate student, as well as numerous formal Oracle
courses. Only one undergraduate course included Access as one of the many
DBMS's studied. My formal database education has been almost entirely in
Oracle, Informix, and SQL Server. However, while I have several degrees,
none of them are in computers or are even related to computers (just
aviation, engineering and business management), just like many of the other
folks who answer questions in the newsgroups. A formal computer education
isn't a prerequisite for working with databases, but I've found that it
helped me immensely. (As well as learning from a couple of gurus, but one
can't expect that sort of luck.)
I've met quite a number of people who have been formally trained in Access
(there are MOUS certification programs available from Microsoft, and many
community colleges and IT schools offer courses and certificates, too), and
while most considered themselves experts, I was extremely disappointed when I
saw their skills (or lack thereof), even when they had years of experience
building Access databases after they had finished their formal training.
The best Access developers have had experience in a wide range of business
or organizational environments (often with very exacting customers) that make
them stretch their skills past their current limits, and/or have been tutored
by a guru. They've put in the hours to figure out the necessary work-arounds
for most situations, and they know where the best resources can be found when
they hit a glitch that they can't solve themselves. You'll find the online
resources in Jeff Conrad's big list (URL listed above) and at the following
links for knowledge bases and archived newsgroup posts:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;KBHOWTO
http://groups-beta.google.com/advan...&as_maxd=26&as_maxm=10&as_maxy=2005&safe=off&
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...S&guid=&sloc=en-us&dg=microsoft.public.access
The best way to get hands-on training early in one's database development
career is to volunteer to build databases for other organizations. Almost
every business has data that needs to be organized and automated, but there
never seems to be enough time or money to do it. Many non-profit
organizations are in the same boat. Seek out people you know who would be
interested in letting you help them with their database needs. As long as
they realize that this is a learning experience for you and not a
mission-critical application they must rely upon immediately, you'll both
enjoy the experience and they'll get a working database application in the
end.
HTH.
Gunny
See
http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips.
(Please remove ZERO_SPAM from my reply E-mail address so that a message will
be forwarded to me.)
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