Microsoft Access Tutorials

Peter Kitson

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Sample Chapter From Microsoft Access Tutorials
     Copyright © Michael Brydon



Access Tutorial 1: Introduction to Microsoft Access


The purpose of these tutorials is not to teach you Microsoft Access, but rather to teach you some generic information systems concepts and skills using Access. Of course, as a side effect, you will learn a great deal about the software—enough to write your own useful applications. However, keep in mind that Access is an enormously complex, nearly industrial-strength software development environment. The material here only scrapes the surface of Access development and database programming.

1.1 Introduction: What is Access?

Microsoft Access is a relational database management system (DBMS). At the most basic level, a DBMS is a program that facilitates the storage and retrieval of structured information on a computer’s hard drive. Examples of well-know industrial-strength relational DBMSes include
• Oracle
• Microsoft SQL Server
• IBM DB2
• Informix

Well-know PC-based (“desktop”) relational DBMSes include

• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft FoxPro
• Borland dBase

1.1.1 The many faces of Access

Microsoft generally likes to incorporate as many features as possible into its products. For example, the Access package contains the following elements:

• a relational database system that supports two industry standard query languages: Structured Query Language (SQL) and Query By Example (QBE);

• the procedural programming personality expects you to view your application as commands to be executed sequentially;

• the object-oriented personality expects you to view your application as objects which encapsulate state and behavior information.

Microsoft makes no effort to provide an overall logical integration of these personalities (indeed, it is unlikely that such an integration is possible). Instead, it is up to you as a developer to pick and choose the best approach to implementing your application. Since there are often several vastly different ways to implement a particular feature in Access, recognizing the different personalities and exploiting the best features (and avoiding the pitfalls) of each are important skills for Access developers.

The advantage of these multiple personalities is that it is possible to use Access to learn about an enormous range of information systems concepts without