Access Database Design & Programming

This book provides experienced Access users who are novice programmers with frequently overlooked concepts and techniques necessary to create effective database applications. Unlike other Access books, it takes the reader behind the details and focuses on core concepts in three major areas:

• Database design: examines the principles of sound relational database design and shows how to normalize tables to eliminate data redundancy without losing data.
• Queries: examines multi-table queries and shows how to implement them indirectly by using the Access interface or directly by using Access SQL.
• Programming: introduces the Data Access Object (DAO) and Microsoft Access object models, which allow a developer to place a database under program control.

Access Database Design and Programming covers a lot of ground quickly but lucidly. Steven Roman begins with a description of general principles of database design, then describes the "relational algebra" that defines the meaning of such operations as unions and joins, introduces SQL syntax, and finally dives into the details of using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) to write Access code. The result is a single book that can teach you all the basics of building database applications in Access. Portions of the book are heavy with logical equations whose effects can be hard to visualize, but Roman's judicious use of sample data makes it much easier to follow the operations being described.