Access 2000 Developers Handbook, Volume 2: Enterprise Edition

The authors of this book (and the companion Volume One) attempt to help the average developer make the transition from DAO to the new ADO syntax and as such the books are a bit longer than they would be if they were only explaining the new ADO syntax and the example ADO code in the book.

There needs to be a more sophisticated ten volume work (by the same authors, as their writing style and the usefulness of their examples simply has no equal in the ACCESS realm) that covers the entire Client Server design process.

Now that you can get MSDE (which is SQL 7.0 for all intents and purposes) for free with Acess2000, there is no reason that any multi-user application should use the Jet for storing the data files. The drawback of having to learn how to use MSDE/SQL7.0 as a data server is really not that bad, the main hassle is that you dont get the nice window display of the MSDE objects (tables, users, functions, etc) that comes with SQL7.0 and also there is no interactive SQL window in Access that would allow you to write and run SQL7.0 SQL strings to build your data objects, etc. But surely someone will create a shareware program that provides most of this information, and it would be one of the few shareware programs Id actually purchase.

In a word, dont expect this book to provide all the exact code youd need for a professional application. These authors did not attempt to create a cookbook to be used for direct use, rather it is a comprehensive first step to learning the new ADO system of connecting ACCESS to a server backend (with many examples of similar DAO code, many times both sets of code are used in the same function, with comments to allow one or the other to be turned on/off). I sure wish Id had this two years ago when I began writing a client/server program, as it would have saved a tremendous amount of time and helped me make a solid, quick, and coherent application in a very short time.

One last note, the little self attaching subform that implements record navigation is worth the price of the entire book (its in Volume One, but you cant, logically, buy this book without also buying Volume One, they refer to each other a great deal and together they are quite comprehensive) and its just one of the little goodies on the CD-ROM. By so meticulously explaining how this subform links itself to the events (called sinking the events) of the parent form its placed in, the authors give you enough information to try this same technique in other ways.

This is the strength of this two volume set, how it educates rather than attempting to be a cookbook of professional code for enterprise applications. There are no other ACCESS2000 books by other publishers that even come close to the level of utility and clarity of these authors. One wishes theyd now write the SQL7.0 backend Handbook as well.

Data Access Pages, ADPs, MSDE, ADO, Multi-User Issues, Security, its all here. Thanks to Litwin, Getz, and Gilbert for yet another great book!