Access 2003 Programming Weekend Crash Course

Rating:
Summary: "Crash" on page 10
Review: After downloading the CheckWriter DB from Wiley's companion site for the book Access 2003 Programming Weekend Crash Course, I try and try but it will not run; it cannot find the linked files; and the "tools" for reference and linking are greyed out. So we "Crash" on page 10. How can the author claim he is teaching us Professional Techniques when his program will not run out of the box?

Rating:
Summary: Awesome book to get up and running on Access 03 Programming
Review: I bought this book to go along with Access 2003 Bible - also written by Cary Prague. I did some of the tutorials in this book and used the Bible to help expand my knowledge and found it very useful. This book gave me the first layer into Access Programming, but I needed it to get me going!

Rating:
Summary: Awesome book to get up and running on Access 03 Programming
Review: I bought this book to go along with Access 2003 Bible - also written by Cary Prague. I did some of the tutorials in this book and used the Bible to help expand my knowledge and found it very useful. This book gave me the first layer into Access Programming, but I needed it to get me going!

Rating:
Summary: Take your time; as much as you need
Review: The authors set themselves an ambitious remit. Can they actually teach you Access in 15 hours? They motivate this with a scenario of a weekend in which you have to learn, starting on Friday night, and going to Sunday afternoon. The time is divided into 6 parts, one on Friday, 3 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday. Each part has several sessions (=lessons) of half an hour each. A novel approach, at least to me. Somewhat of a role-playing setup.

Each session goes over some straightforward coding. There is a back and forth between the widget forms, which often show tabular data, and the procedures that make these forms, or analyse input from them.

The pace is rather hurried. And you don't really get into the SQL itself. But, by and large, you may be able to get a basic operational familiarity with Access if you stay the course. The problem is that some lessons may well take more than half an hour. If you find yourself doing this, don't worry. You're not a retard! Just take as much time as you need to understand the material. I think the authors are overly optimistic about the alloted time for some sessions. Yes, you can force yourself to commit only 30 minutes to each. But at what cost in comprehension? More to the point, you presumably want to build on what you learn here. A shaky foundation may not help. So take your time.

The book could be improved if the authors dispense with the artifice of the 15 hours total. Cute gimmick. But it wears thin, and can actually interfere with the book's efficacy.