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Home > Archive > MOS > December 2001 > Microsoft Access
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| bass2k1 2001-12-18, 1:15 pm |
| Anybody know where I can get some Access tutorials. I am heading up the DB Admin road, and I figured getting to grips with Access could be a good place to start, since I have no DB experience what so ever.
Thanks for any suggestions | |
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| bass2k1 2001-12-18, 1:54 pm |
| Thank you for those links. I have MS SQL 2000 Evaluation, but haven't installed it yet. So it would actually be more or less the same whether I start out with SQL or Access? | |
| sibley 2001-12-18, 2:49 pm |
| Access 2K is a big improvement over previous versions, but it is a lot like Access97 if you have had the chance to use that. Although Access does it's best to make the user think that it is easy to deal with by hiding everything behind a GUI, you really need to have a good bit og knowledge of databases as well, and if you don't know SQL, you may have trouble altering the queries to do what you want them to if a GUI tool isn't readily available (such as for doing UNIONs). I would suggest you learn your SQL thoroughly first, because once you get used to GUI tools, you won't learn it unless compelled to. The good news is that it's a 4GL and pretty easy to learn. Tutorials are available everywhere on the web, but they aren't of much use unless you have some databases to query. In Access, you can go into your View-->SQL to see the SQL equivalent of your query that you made via the point-and-click method. If you have any more questions, I would be glad to help. | |
| bass2k1 2001-12-18, 2:56 pm |
| Thank you very much. I will install SQL and have someone create a DB for me I can query. I might just take you up on your help offer  | |
| sibley 2001-12-19, 6:20 am |
| If you are running Linux, you can get PostgreSQl or MySQL for free. You might want to play around with those as well. The exact SQL syntax differs slightly from one product to another, but once you know it, you will be able to move easily between Sybase, DB2, Access, Oracle, MySQL, and so on, so this is a good step. Access has its own SQL engine so try getting access to some databases and querying it, then look at the SQL, then maybe try coding your next query up by hand. This gives you much greater flexibility in making queries and it also allows you to run "embedded SQL", or SQL blocks that are embedded in procedural languages that will give you the processing power that SQL lacks (SQL is not really used to do detailed processing, but mainly for database manipulation). Try getting a free account at www.oracle.com, they have an excellent site that will allow you to do searches on various syntax options. The "Help" in MS Access can also give you the syntax to many of its SQL functions, such as the DATEPART function or IIf function, so it may be of help as well. Oracle I think allows a free copy to individuals for personal use as well. Lots of websites nowadays use databases on their backends with web forms to allow one to get information. This is a really good skillset to have. | |
| bass2k1 2001-12-19, 11:50 am |
| Thanks again for some more great information. I have some MySQL experience, but nothing to brag about really, and I have Linux Slackware running on 2 of my boxes on my home lab, so I will play around with that a bit too. |
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