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Microsoft® Office Access 2003 Inside Out (Microsoft Office Access Inside Out)
written by John L. Viescas
Studio : Microsoft Press
by Microsoft Press
Brand : Microsoft
Platform : No Operating System
Publisher : Microsoft Press
Released : 2003-11-26
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780735615137
UPC : 790145151360
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 29 reviews)
List Price : $49.99
Our Price : $28.29
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Product Description |
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A complete program with textbook, lab manual, and software, this Microsoft Official Academic Course provides everything students need to build the knowledge and skills necessary to design an organization's active directory and network infrastructure. In a |
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Microsoft Access inside and out |
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Microsoft Access is a well written book, it has greatly help me understand how the program work. |
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Good Access 2003 book, but lacks coherence |
PROS:
- Thorough read on the essentials of Access 2003 and building databases in Access.
CONS:
- The author is dry.
- Other parts of the book dealing with VBA and SQL Server (.adp files) frequently assume more information than the reader is introduced to making it necessary to have multiple reference sources to understand what the author is talking about.
OVERALL:
- A really good book for someone with prior Access knowledge who would like to have a through understanding or fill in missing gaps to complete their understanding of working with MS Access 2003. However, it is not a good book for a beginners understanding or gap filling knowledge of SQL Server, ADP files or VBA, which is ½ of the book
- A questionable book for someone with no Access experience because the volume of information is overwhelming.
- This IS NOT a reference book!
SUMMARY:
The book is over 1,000 pages long. Not that it should matter but it is kind of bothersome that the author's picture is in the book at least 30 times; what's up with that?
The biggest drawback to the book is that the author jumps into deep material without providing enough clarification and background information about what he is discussing prior to starting a discussion.
The section on VBA can only be read if you have other reference material in front of you that defines words and terms that are being used to tell you about VBA. In this regard, the author fails the reader and may as well have not written the last half of the book because there is too much information to introduce to do a good job discussing the primary points without having to assume the reader is familiar with all the extended topics that are involved with learning VBA as written by the author.
Overall it is a good book but certainly did not meet my expectations given the reviews written on this board.
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Not for Beginners |
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I have been tasked with developing a new database for tracking and reporting city inspection data, permits, citations, etc. I had limited previous experience in using Access. I did take a one-day class in access programing, which gave me a leg up on getting into some programming. The Beginner type Access books that I previously used did not provide enough depth to help me develope the database. So, I was looking for a more advanced reference book. The great reviews for Access 2003 Inside Out encouraged me to give it a try. But, after daily using the book for the past several months, I found that it was not very helpful. The Microsoft website help function provided much more understandable help to me than is book. Perhaps if I had time to read the book from cover to cover to get a comprehensive view of how everything works, this book would be useful. Perhaps it is a good comprehensive reference book for people who have more experience with Access. But, for me, who had limited prior experience, it was not very useful. |
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Very Helpful |
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This book is incredibly helpful to the relatively experienced user. There were quite a few things I was having a great amount of difficulty understanding, but this book explained things in such a way that I now understand and have since completed my databases I was creating for work. Not recommended for the beginner user. |
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Excellent information; well organized; horrendous writing |
Viescas certainly deserves his status as a Microsoft Access database expert. He packs a lot of information into this book and, at over 1200 pages, there's a lot of room for packing!
The book is very well organized and walks you through the many aspects of developing an effective database and using Access' many features. It's also well indexed so you can find what you're looking for when you need detail.
Given these positive aspects about the book, it's truly a shame the writing's so bad. If something can be described in 10 words, Viescas uses 100. Here I put the blame on the editors. Writers are frequently over-verbose and it's the editor's responsibility to ensure writing is concise and clear. Perhaps the editors were intimidated by Viescas' database knowledge and were afraid to cut anything out; perhaps he's given such high status by the publisher that the editors had no clout. Whatever the case, the writing's a detriment in that it makes it very hard to read.
One example where Viescas gives his IT background precedence over his writing background is his naming of the database elements. He gives all elements (such as tables) long, drawn out descriptive names. This results in sentences like 'you might be tempted to start a new query on tblContacts and add the tblCompanies, tblContactProducts, and tblProducts tables.'
While anyone doing major database development knows naming conventions are VERY important, applying the most detailed of these conventions in a manual aimed at explaining concepts is nothing but confusing. Viescas should have used very simple element names in the text, then added a chapter about use of proper naming conventions in your development.
Additionally, the naming concepts he applies are his own - not any 'standard' that readers might be familiar with. In fact, he waits until page 372 to include a sidebar explaining what the little prefixes he uses indicate. Until that point, they're nothing but annoyances to the reader. After that, they're explainable annoyances.
Again, with all the valuable, well organized information in this book, it's really a shame the writing is so poor. The difficulty in this type of book should be gaining understanding of the concepts - not trying to make it through the poor writing.
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